Worlds Apart
by GateGrrl560
Summary: When Beckett, McKay and Keller return to Earth for some much needed R&R all they wanted was a quiet weekend. Rest and recreation quickly evolve into research and revelation when they stumble on a mystery as deep as the Lantean Ocean.
1. Restless Nights

**Summary:**

When Carson Beckett, Rodney McKay and Jennifer Keller return to Earth for some much needed R&R all they wanted was a quiet weekend with friends. Then they meet Daniel Jackson and his research assistant. Ancient tech, stolen data and a missing friend soon draws them into a mystery as deep as the Lantean Ocean. Rest and recreation quickly evolves into research and revelation as the Lanteans and Jackson race to unlock the secrets of the Ancient tech and find their missing friend. Will they find the answers in time or will their friend be lost to them forever?

This story is set in Season 5 immediately following the events of The Seed. This story contains spoilers from Seasons 1-5 including Poisoning the Well, Michael, Misbegotten, Sunday, Kindred II, Search and Rescue and The Seed.

This story is rated 18+ for mature themes including physical and psychological violence; drug induced torture; alcohol; and adult language. If you read it, you will find the F-bomb. This story has been heavily edited but has not been betaed. All mistakes are mine alone.

**WORLDS APART**

**Chapter 1**

**Restless Nights**

The nights were the worst; long, quiet, lonely. There was no one to talk to, no one to distract him from his thoughts. There was nothing but too much quiet; too much alone. At night there was nothing but the memories, the memories that weren't his. These memories belonged to another man, the man who shared his face, his mind, his intelligence. But they aren't his, they never were. How could he be an intruder in his own mind? How could he remember what is not his? Too many memories, tumbled and jumbled, tossed around like so much mental salad.

_What is real? What is mine? What right do I have to this life?_ The questions blended, coating the memories in confusion, the dressing on the salad. The counterpoint to the biggest question of all: _Who am I? Where do I belong? Do I belong at all?_

He twisted, restless in his sleep as the memories poured through the fragile barrier between the conscious and the subconscious. The memories whispered, taunted as they dug at his psyche with sharp insistent claws. He murmured softly, crying out against the pain and the cruelty the memories carried. _Not good enough. Weak. Pathetic. My creation._ He whimpered again, cringing against the onslaught.

"_You're exactly what I need..."_the strident voice echoed through his mind.

Carson twisted again, trapped in the blanket he'd wound around his body. The voice of his creator reverberated through his mind, ripping him from restful sleep into sweat-soaked, fear-flooded nightmares.

_Teyla's voice, filled with anger and fear and desperation, "Shoot him, Carson" she begged. _

_He raised the gun. _

"_Shoot him, Carson."_

_He wanted to. He'd tried. His finger tightened until his hand shook. The gun, slick with sweat, slipped easily from his grasp as Michael wrenched it away._

"_I'm sorry Teyla" he couldn't meet her eyes. He couldn't face the desolation and the disappointment he knew was there. Weak, he was so weak. He should have stood up for his team mate. He should have stood up for Teyla; he should have protected her. He'd tried; he was just too weak. Weak in mind, weak in body, he'd failed his friend when she needed him most. _

"_They don't trust you. You're not the real Carson Beckett. The real Carson Beckett would have saved her, protected her. The real Carson Beckett would have been strong enough to do it. But not you. Not the carbon copy. You have his face, his name, but you are not him." Michael jeered and laughed as he taunted his former prisoner._

"_You don't look so good, Doctor. You should have stayed with me..." the voice sneered. "You have served your purpose..." The voiced hissed and his face twisted in a malicious caricature of a smile and Michael raised the stunner and pulled the trigger..._

Carson woke with a heavy thud as he fell from the bed, his body still wrapped in its cloying cloak of blanket. He scrubbed a shaky hand over his face, as if he rubbed hard enough, he could erase the nightmare that haunted him. Since waking from the stasis pod, he'd been plagued with nightmares. He didn't talk about them. No one would understand. How could they? None of them had spent the better part of two years waiting, hoping, and praying for a rescue that was never going to come.

In the end, it wasn't a rescue; it was a scavenger hunt. They weren't looking for him. They never had been. _"But that's just it. We weren't looking for you. To us, you weren't missing. You were dead."_ He'd seen the look on Rodney's face; heard the brutal painful truth in his words.

They'd mourned him, missed him and moved beyond him. They'd replaced him. And now he was back, the original Lazarus Man, resurrected from the dead. Back, but not belonging. Back, but no place to call his own. He knew he'd been replaced as Chief Medical Officer. Two years was a long time to leave a post vacant, especially when that post belonged to a dead man. He had expected that. What he hadn't expected was the distrust, the suspicion, the idea that he could be a threat, under the influence of a powerful and dangerous enemy.

He was aware of the looks, the sneaky sideways glances from the others when they thought he didn't see. The sudden guilty expressions, the quick shifting of eyes; people who were once friends, ready with a wave and a smile, now awkward and unsure around him. People, who were so forthcoming, now feared speaking to him. No one knew quite what to say. What do you say to a man you buried and mourned and moved beyond? How do you say hello when you've long ago said goodbye?

"_We don't leave people behind."_ For two years, Colonel Sheppard's mantra had played in an endless loop in his mind. _"We don't leave people behind."_ Except he'd been left behind. Left behind because his life wasn't real; he wasn't real. Sure he bled red when cut, felt the pain, healed, scars faded and pale on his skin. He looked like Carson; he sounded like Carson. Hell, he had every mannerism and memory of Carson. But he wasn't Carson; not their Carson. And he had no idea what that meant.

He supposed he'd have plenty of time to consider it. He was leaving in a few hours, returning to Earth for recuperation and evaluation. He loved Atlantis. He hadn't realized what he'd had until it was lost to the small grayness of Michael's prison. In Michael's world, there was no grace, no beauty, no light. In Michael's world, there was no freedom, no laughter, no joy. In Michael's world, there was pain and fear and despair. In Michael's world, there was no hope. Carson had clung to the hope of rescue for every one of the 681 days he was trapped in that miserable dingy existence.

And then the rescue came, and with it the painful truth of his life. Carson sighed heavily, pushed back against the thoughts and the voices that crowded his mind. _It's not their fault. They didn't know. How could they? In their world, I was, am a dead man. _

Dr. Keller, with Dr. Rodney McKay's help, had found the secret formula, the magic bullet to halt the progressive cellular degradation that had landed him in the stasis pod in the first place. In turn, he'd been there for her, developed the treatment that cured her and everyone else infected with the spores from Michael's little shop of horrors. He thought he'd proved his worth and his trustworthiness, his value to Atlantis. But now that the crisis was over, everyone restored to their normal, healthy selves; Mr. Woolsey was still sending him away.

It was to be a quick trip through the Stargate this time. No three week journey on the Daedalus. No time to make the transition from Atlantis to Earth. No time to get used to the idea that it might be a one way ticket. No time to consider an uncertain future.

"_What future?"_ the voice in his head mocked him. _"There is no future for you. You're not the real Carson Beckett. It was supposed to be his future, not yours."_

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Carson shouted at the voice. He thought the lights on at half power, chasing the darkness into the deeper shadows and stumbled to his feet. His few belongings were packed in a small duffel, waiting for the morning jump through the gate. Mostly clothes, these borrowed or issued from supply. His personal effects had been returned to his family two years ago. He wondered how his family, his mum, had received them. Had she unpacked the box, sharing her pain with his things, distributing the physical manifestation of his being among her home? Or had she left the box sealed, containerized her pain with the artifacts of his life? _"I'm sorry Mum. I wish I could have said a proper goodbye."_

He wanted to see her. He wanted to feel her arms solid around his shoulders when she hugged him. He wanted to look into her eyes, so like his own. He wanted to sit quietly, drinking tea and eating scones, talking of nothing and everything. He wanted to walk with her in the green fields and hills of his native Scotland. If the SGC gives its consent; then he'd go to Scotland and do all of these things, he decided. Return to Scotland? If he couldn't stay in Atlantis, it was an attractive alternative. The only unknown in the equation was the SGC. And the IOA. And until he resolved his standing with them, the unknowns held all the cards.

He sighed, scrubbed a hand over his eyes and studied his reflection in the small mirror in his bathroom. Dark shadows under his eyes competed with the dark shadows in his soul. He splashed cold water across his face, chased away the last vestiges of the nightmare. He sighed again, turned from the bathroom and slipped into jeans and a T-shirt. He scooped the tangled bedclothes from the floor and tossed them carelessly on the bed. No sense in lying down, there would be no more sleep for him tonight.

Carson stepped quietly out of his room. At least Richard Woolsey trusted him enough to have dispensed with the armed escort Colonel Carter gifted him when he first returned. He was relieved; no one else was out wandering the halls of Atlantis. He checked his watched, surprised it was only 0230. The Stargate dial up was scheduled for 0930. Seven hours, not nearly enough time to say goodbye to the city he once feared and came to love. Not nearly enough time to memorize the details of the place he'd dreamed of during his captivity. Not nearly enough time, but he'd try.

He walked the halls, keeping the lighting soft. No sense in disturbing the folks who slept. He walked with no destination in mind, and was only mildly surprised to find himself standing in front of his infirmary doors. _"No, not yours; it never was yours. It was his, now it belongs to her." The voice taunted him again. "Not your city. Not your place. You aren't him. You have no place here."_

He walked faster, desperate to escape the voice echoing hollowly in his head and his heart. His feet carried him to a little used balcony and he gratefully stepped into the cool night air. He'd miss this, he realized. He'd miss the peaceful solitude of standing on the balconies while gentle ocean breezes ruffled his hair and teased it into jagged tufts and whorls. He'd miss the soft music of the ocean slapping against the city support columns. He'd missed it so much during his captivity. He'd miss it even more, he realized, if he was never allowed back.

Carson sat slumped, his back against the wall; his arms hugged his knees to his chest. He rested his head on his knees and gathered the peaceful presence of the sleeping Atlantis around him like a blanket. In a little under seven hours he'd leave all this behind. He'd fought so hard to hold onto the hope for a rescue, a return, and then, a cure. Now he'd found it, only to have it ripped away. How could he leave all this behind? He couldn't, he realized. He buried his face in his arms and wept.

۞۞۞

Sunlight, warm and golden, washed over him as he woke from a troubled sleep. He checked his watch and realized he had less than an hour before his trip through the Stargate. Regret flooded through him; he was out of time. There would be no goodbyes for his friends, for his team, or for his city. He'd intended them, before the solitude and despair had wrapped him in a cloak of self pity. He scrambled to his feet, and ignoring the ache in muscles stiffened by cold, Carson hustled to the door.

"Brooding alone again?" Rodney's voice greeted him in the doorway. "And close your mouth before some disgusting alien bug flies in."

"Rodney. What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. Woolsey's having a fit because you're not in your room and you're not responding to radio hails. So in typical bureaucratic overreaction, he's issued an APB for you. Though why I got stuck doing the looking when I have..."

Rodney shut up as if someone had flipped a switch. Carson's radar tuned to high alert mode. Something was up, otherwise Rodney's rant would have continued until well after the wormhole disengaged.

"What's going on?"

"You have a little trip planned, remember? And Woolsey's not happy that you are delaying the departure schedule. Come on, the sooner you go, the sooner you can come back."

"Rodney, you don't know that I'm coming back. I don't even know if I'm coming back."

"What, are you kidding me? The SGC would be crazy not to send you back here. Your work with the retrovirus and your knowledge of the Wraith biomedical research alone makes you invaluable. They'd be a bunch of moronic brainless imbeciles not to send you back."

Carson raised a hand as if he could stem the verbal flood tumbling from McKay's mouth with that simple gesture. "I know Rodney, I know. But they still have to get over the fact that I'm not really him, that I'm not really Carson Beckett. They have to know if they can trust me, and right now they don't. Not as long as Michael is still out there somewhere."

"That's not true..."

"It is. Rodney, last time he just took the gun away from me. What if next time he orders me to shoot you, or Ronan, or Colonel Sheppard? What if I can't resist his influence?"

"What if; what if? Forget about that for a minute. Its because of Michael you were able to help all of us. And we can find a way to break Michael's mind control. We just have to keep trying."

"But what if we can't? What if his influence is so strong I can't ever resist it? Rodney, I might never be free of him, not completely. And if I can't resist him, then I'm a bigger liability than asset. The SGC knows it; the IOA knows it; Mr. Woolsey knows it; even Colonel Sheppard knows it. That's why they're sending me back. It's why they may never let me return." Carson's voice was intense, his eyes hard and fierce as he tried to make his best friend understand.

"It's not what I want, Rodney. I want to stay. I just can't put anyone else in jeopardy." He stopped, surprised to find they had arrived at his room. He entered with a thought, picked up the duffel and turned expectantly to the physicist standing in the doorway.

"Come on; walk me to the gate room."

"This sucks." Rodney's words were barely audible over the background chatter of Atlantis and the ordinary business of living.

"Aye, that it does." Carson agreed.

They walked in silence, there was really nothing left to say, except goodbye and neither of them was willing to utter those words, not now. Not yet.

Rodney halted abruptly, a speculative look on his face. "I'll meet you in the gateroom in a few minutes Carson."

"Rodney?"

"Not now, a few minutes." Rodney tossed over his shoulder as he dashed down the wide corridor.

Carson watched him as he tapped his radio earpiece and spoke rapidly. He shrugged as his hyper kinetic friend zipped around the corner, amused by the waving hands in the one sided conversation. Some things never change. Carson smiled as he continued toward the gateroom. It was vintage McKay, wrapped in a problem and presented with an 'ah ha' solution. He hoped McKay would return to see him off. As he shifted the weight of the duffel to his left shoulder, Carson felt the weight of his earlier melancholy settle heavily on his shoulders_. No sense putting off the inevitable, if you don't go, they're only going to think you are less trustworthy. Go prove to them that they still need you._

۞۞۞

Carson arrived at the gateroom, slightly out of breath and ten minutes late. He'd run into too many people intent on saying goodbye, and he hadn't wanted to be rude or rush his words. He paused before entering, and composed himself for what lay ahead. He sighed, regretful for all he hadn't said, and walked into the gateroom.

"Well it's about time you got here. Where have you been? Stopping on every balcony for another view of the city?" Rodney was in full snark as he juggled a backpack loaded with laptops and tablets and a large duffel stuffed to the bursting point with clothes, notes and bits and pieces of Ancient tech.

"It's only been ten minutes McKay." Dr. Keller's gentle voice chimed in. "You all ready to go Carson?" Keller's own bags waited by her side.

"Aye, as ready as ever I guess." He quirked an eyebrow at Rodney. "What's all this then?"

"Shore leave. I have some R&R time due, so I thought now's as good a time as any." Rodney shrugged nonchalantly.

Carson grinned. Maybe this trip back to the SGC wouldn't be so bad after all.

Mr. Woolsey walked up to them. "Good luck Dr. Beckett. Dr. Keller, take care of him. Dr. McKay, enjoy your R&R. I'll see you back here soon. And doctors, try to stay out of trouble." He nodded to Chuck, "dial it up."

The wormhole swooshed into existence and the small party stepped through and left Atlantis far behind.

۞۞۞


	2. A Cautious Man

**Chapter 2**

**A Cautious Man**

"Dr. Keller, Dr. McKay, Dr. Beckett, welcome to Earth. I have to admit, Dr. McKay, we weren't really expecting you." General Landry greeted the trio as they stepped into the SGC gateroom.

"Well, I do have some R&R time and things are quiet on Atlantis right now so..." Rodney waved his hand. "I did bring some research notes on a project or two; I'll finally have time to read them."

"That will have to wait until you've been cleared. Doctors, I believe you know the way to the infirmary." Landry gestured to the door. "The briefing is scheduled for 1530. You should have plenty of time for medical checks and lunch."

۞۞۞

"Well it appears the serum is working. We haven't found any signs of cellular deterioration. I think if you stick to the regimen Dr. Keller has prescribed, you should be fine." Dr. Lam reviewed her findings with Carson.

"No more stasis pods then?" His relief was written over his features.

"Not if these results are any indication. All you need now is food and rest and you should be good as new." Dr. Lam snapped her mouth shut, shocked that she had made such a careless statement.

Carson smiled and shrugged. "It's ok, love. It's going to take some getting used to, for all of us."

"Well, for now you are free to go. I know the General has a briefing scheduled later this afternoon, so if you were planning lunch, you'd better hit the commissary."

Carson nodded and slipped out the door. He made his way along the busy corridor of the SGC, heading for the cafeteria. He was struck by the contrast between Atlantis and the SGC. The former was graceful, light and beautiful in design and purpose; the latter flat, grim and utterly utilitarian. It reminded Carson of the differences between the architecture of Western and Eastern Europe, before the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

He entered the commissary and spotted Jennifer and Rodney sitting at a table with Dr. Daniel Jackson. Carson grabbed a tray and debated his lunch choices: a lumpy brown meat dish of mysterious origin or a soggy sandwich of dubious distinction. He frowned, picked the sandwich and some fruit, a cup of black, oily coffee and joined his friends.

"I don't think it sounds like fun." Rodney pressed his end of the argument.

"Come on, Rodney. It's just for a few hours and besides; it will be fun. We go out, go to the concert, and come back here afterward. You can talk to Colonel Carter then." Jen countered.

"It's not that I don't want to go; I just...I have things to do."

"I thought you came here for some R&R." Jen used Rodney's own argument against him. "This is R&R."

"Wait, that's not fair. My idea of R&R is reading and researching in a nice quiet lab, undisturbed by idiots."

"Fine, then I'll take Carson."

"What? Take Carson where?" the subject of the conversation looked up from the dissection of his sandwich.

"To a concert in Colorado Springs. Come on Carson; it'll be fun. You need to get out side; fresh air and sunshine will do you a world of good." Jen turned to him, working her powers of persuasion.

"Aye, that it might, but I don't have clearance to leave the SGC. I don't think General Landry and the IOA are going to be letting me out anytime soon." He frowned at the thought of staying in the underground complex.

"It's just for the weekend. I can get you out. You've been cleared by Dr. Lam, but you're still my patient and need to be under medical supervision." Jen grinned, clear-eyed innocence shone on her face.

"Well, I guess..." the rest of his statement was cut off by her smothering hug.

"I knew you would say yes. I'll clear it with Landry right after the briefing." Jennifer cleared her tray and headed for the briefing room.

"Rodney..."

"No, Carson."

"Come on Dr. McKay; where's your sense of adventure?"

"I'm sorry. I forgot to pack it."

"Why did you come, really?"

"What?"

"Why did you leave Atlantis? You said you wanted some R&R, but you're planning on locking yourself away in some dusty lab. You could have stayed and done that. So why are you here?"

"I...look...it's...I..." Rodney waved a hand, lost for the words to explain.

"She likes _you,_ Rodney. Come with us. Take a chance and get to know her better, away from the job, the crises. Get to know Jennifer, not just Dr. Keller." Carson smiled at his friend and the dumbfounded look on his face. It was a rare occurrence when Dr. Rodney McKay was at a loss for words. Carson was pleased that he'd pegged the problem in one.

"But...but...but...I'm terrible with women. What if I screw this up? What if we take this little road trip and we...I...she..."

"You won't know if you never take a chance. And you won't get too many chances like this once you get back to Atlantis."

"So you think I should..." Rodney looked lost, indecisive. It was not a look that suited him.

"Go with us, yes."

"Ok fine. I'll go, but you have to go too."

"Oh I wouldn't miss this for the world." Carson smiled, took a swig of the coffee and grimaced. "Ach, they must have scraped this off the road. And I thought we had bad coffee in Atlantis."

"If you want good coffee; then you definitely need to go with Dr. Keller." Daniel had been silent, listening to the Lanteans' banter while he read a translation and picked at his lunch.

"And why is that?" Rodney arched an eyebrow in his direction.

"Oh, I guess she didn't tell you that the concert is being held in the best coffee shop in Colorado Springs."

Rodney sipped at his cold coffee. Maybe this little diversion would be worthwhile after all. If nothing else, he would finally get a decent cup of coffee.

۞۞۞


	3. Crush On You

**Chapter 3**

**Crush on You**

Landry hadn't been happy, but he granted Jennifer's request for a weekend pass for Carson. He'd considered sending a marine escort, but Dr. McKay had made a rather convincing argument against such action. After all, they were on Earth, and other than a handful of people with the SGC, no one else knew Dr. Beckett was a clone. As long as they were careful and didn't discuss the matter in public, it shouldn't be a problem. It wouldn't be a problem as far as Carson was concerned; he had no intentions of discussing that particular detail with anyone.

Dr. Keller prescribed fresh air and sunshine for Carson's health. The fresh air was plentiful; the sunshine was another story. Cool rain fell in a slow soggy drizzle, scrubbing the air clean. Rodney and Jennifer chatted amicably in the back seat of Daniel's car. Carson leaned back against the front passenger seat, relaxing and reveling in his freedom. Nearly two years of captivity and life aboard hive ships and underground complexes had given him a new appreciation for open spaces.

The 'what ifs' played across the movie screen of his mind and painted grim scenarios of his future. _What if the IOA recommended permanent confinement in the SGC? What if, God forbid, they recommended he be remanded into custody in Area 51? He had no illusions as to what would happen to him if that were the case. What if they recommended he be returned to the Pegasus galaxy and Atlantis? Could he find a place there? Could he rebuild his life, reconcile what was with what is and make a new life?_ He sighed and shut them out. There would be more than enough time for the 'what ifs' later. Right now, in this time and place, he simply wanted to live a normal life. That really wasn't so much to ask; after all he'd been through, with all he was facing, now was it?

Daniel pulled into a parking space at the edge of a rusty ocher brick building. Ceiling to floor windows looked out over a small flagstone patio. Painted iron chairs and tables with shade umbrellas furled miserably against the rain sat scattered across the flat sandstone blocks. Bright flowers in hanging planters blossomed in a riot of color against the gloomy gray day. A fence of reeds and grasses, wrought in iron, wrapped around the patio, segregating it from the sidewalk and pedestrian foot traffic.

The heady rich fragrance of freshly roasted, ground coffee greeted the group as they walked through the heavy glass door. Rodney stopped, inhaling a deep lungful of the invigorating scent. He was in heaven; this was definitely worth the few lost hours in the lab, although he would never admit it to anyone.

The group looked around the shop. Spacious and airy, the two story building was larger than it looked from the outside. The place was nearly empty; the business crowd had long departed from their caffeine power lunches and the few patrons remaining had the scruffy, sleepless appearance of students working against deadlines on the time honored combination of too much coffee and not enough sleep.

A spiky blue-haired pixie of a waitress balanced a tray of mismatched mugs and plates on one hip while she greeted the newcomers with a smile. "Hi, welcome to Caffiends. Tim, can you give me a hand?" The girl handed off the tray to a smooth-headed beanpole of a man. He flashed a smile, ivory on ebony, and easily lifted the tray from the woman.

"Yeah mon, I gotcha Jill. Hey Kiyah, mon, you got dat ting fixed yet? Boss lady be back soon." He tilted his head, addressing someone out of sight.

A sharp thump, muffled cursing and a loud shout betrayed the presence of at least one person hidden behind and under the counter. Curious, Carson moved in for a closer look as the cursing increased in volume and ferocity.

"Wretched, useless, miserable, worthless, hateful piece of...uh oh...CRAP! Look out!"

Jill and Tim wasted no time; they went diving for cover as soon as the voice yelled 'crap'. Carson's eyes widened as the owner of the voice dove over the counter and straight into his arms. The barista's momentum took them both to the floor in a tangle of arms, legs and long shaggy blond hair. Ominous hissing followed by a jet of hot water punctuated the barista's abbreviated flight.

"I am so sorry. Are you ok?" Carson looked into deep, ocean green eyes regarding him with concern. The woman's hair swung over her shoulder, fell forward and tickled his face. He swallowed, trying to remember that he possessed the power of speech. "Oh no, I did hurt you. I'm so sorry; I didn't know anyone was there." She continued the apology.

"I'm ok." He smiled at the woman and realized he really wasn't in any hurry to get off the floor.

"Oh for crying out loud. He's channeling Sheppard. Get up, Carson." Rodney's loud voice broke the spell.

Carson and the woman rolled apart, scrambled to their feet and squirmed in the awkwardness of the moment. Daniel cleared his throat, redirecting everyone's attention.

"Hi. Ah Kiyah, I'd like to introduce you to some friends of mine. This is Dr. Rodney McKay, Dr. Jennifer Keller and Dr. Carson Beckett. Guys, meet Kiyah Menomonee."

"Hi." Kiyah gave them a quick wave and a friendly grin. "I usually don't throw myself at strange men," she turned the full wattage grin on Carson, "but today I don't mind making an exception." His face flamed crimson at the implied compliment.

"God he is channeling Sheppard. One Kirk is enough already. Oof" Rodney pressed a hand against the sharp poke in his ribs. Jennifer quirked an eyebrow and gave him a wide-eyed innocent smile.

"Hey Dr. J, I didn't think you were coming tonight." Kiyah's tone was light as her eyes searched his face.

"Yeah well, I changed my mind about the show and Dr. McKay needed a really good cup of coffee..." Daniel shrugged as if to say 'yeah I know its lame but what can I do'.

Kiyah nodded. "Hey that's cool. Grab a seat then. Soon as I get that hateful machine fixed, I'll brew up some fresh." She turned to her co-workers, "you guys ok?'

"Yeah, we good, mon. But you get dat machine fixed, fast, Kiyah girl or Ms. Lydia be screamin' mad."

"I know Tim. The problem is, I don't know if the damn thing is fixable. The pressure regulator is shot to hell, the intake valve leaks and the relief valve isn't in much better shape. What we need is a new machine. What we have is an obsolete hunk of junk that's been patched so many times, I don't think even MacGyver could fix it."

"You gonna tell da boss dat?"

"Somebody has to. Hey we could draw straws?" Kiyah smiled at her friends, hope written in her features.

"Not a chance." Jill giggled. "You told her you could fix it."

"No, I told her I fixed it the last time it broke. There is a difference."

"Like Lydia is gonna care."

"Tim."

"Not me, mon. I jus' run da kitchen." He retreated through a swinging door to his domain, leaving Kiyah with an industrial size broken hot water dispenser and a spreading flood of heated water pooling on the floor.

"Thanks guys, thanks for the support. Tim can you at least give me a hand with the water?"

The pair cleaned up the mess and Kiyah turned a scowl on her nemesis.

"I'm pretty good with my hands..."Rodney trailed off as Kiyah turned an amused grin his way.

"Oh really? I don't think your girlfriend would appreciate you sharing comments like that with other women." The sputtering and flush of red across the man's face was worth the kick in the shin from Jill.

"She's not my...I meant I...I was...I might be able to help fix...that." Rodney managed to get the words out.

"Kiyah, be nice. Maybe he can help us."

"Sure take a look. You can't break it any more than it's already broke. And if you fix it; I'll pay for all the coffee you can drink."

"Deal. Now what seems to be the problem?" Kiyah and Rodney spent the next half hour buried under the counter yanking the guts out of the machine. Swearing, shouting and more than one threat later, McKay had diagnosed the problem and proposed a solution. Kiyah rattled around in the stockroom procuring the needed items to affect the repairs. Rodney finished the repairs as Kiyah cleaned up the last of the mess.

"Hope you got dat ting fixed mon. Boss Lady here." Tim appeared as a disembodied head in their workspace, nearly scaring McKay into a coronary.

"Get out of here. Hurry, go sit with your friends." Kiyah hustled McKay from behind the counter, practically shoving him away.

"What's with the freakout? You're welcome, you know." Kiyah turned away from him and busied herself at the controls of the espresso machine.

"Lydia can be a bit difficult sometimes." Daniel offered.

"Think Wicked Witch of the West, only better dressed." Jill piped up from clearing the adjacent table. She shot the SG crew a shocked look and clapped both hands over her mouth as if she couldn't believe she'd said such a thing out loud.

"Kiyah!"

"And cue the flying monkeys." Kiyah muttered. Dr. Keller snorted a laugh as the coffee shop owner swept into the room.

The coffee house employees were casual sunshine and warmth, laughter and smiles in an easy confident friendliness. Lydia Harper was glacial angles and planes; ice grey eyes and platinum hair styled in a spectacularly expensive cut topped an outfit that stepped out of the latest edition of Vogue. "Kiyah!"

"Yes, Lydia." Kiyah's back tightened as she turned toward her boss.

"You did fix it?" The arched eyebrow and cool down-the-nose gaze conveyed that anything other than affirmative was unacceptable and would have dire consequences if spoken.

"Yes, it's fixed. But I have no idea how long it will work and if it breaks again..."

Lydia held up a French manicured finger. "As long as it works tonight."

"It should. I'm just getting ready to test it out." Kiyah nodded to Daniel and company. Lydia swept them with an icy stare.

"Well get on with it."

Kiyah fired up the water heater, steamed milk, ground fresh beans and soon had four mugs of steaming hot lattes sitting in front of the four doctors.

"She seems like a real piece of work" McKay observed. He sucked at the coffee, his eyes closed in bliss as he swallowed the rich flavorful brew. This was definitely worth a few hours of research time.

"Actually, she's in a good mood."

"That's a good mood? Coulda fooled me." Carson sipped at the coffee, thoughtful as he watched Lydia across the room.

"Yeah, she didn't kick you out when she walked in."

"She wouldn't."

"She would and she has." Kiyah wiped a non-existent spot from their table. "Ask Daniel, he's seen her do it."

"Kiyah, about that concert. I don't suppose you can..." Daniel frowned as she shook her head.

"Can't get out of it. I have to work tonight. We all do. But I have tickets for you and your friends." She leaned over his shoulder, dropping four tickets in his jacket pocket. "You really don't want to miss this. Back table, north corner, upstairs. I have the upper bar tonight." She straightened, smiled. "Oh and you want to be early if you expect more than liquid refreshment."

Kiyah flashed them another grin and flipped the towel over her shoulder as she walked away.

"Ok, what just happened?" Rodney hadn't missed the emphasis Kiyah placed on the table she directed them to for the concert.

"Oh, Kiyah's just giving us a seating recommendation."

"For a concert you didn't want to attend?" Keller picked up the ball.

"Yeah. Look, guys, the concert and the coffee aren't the only reason I came up here tonight. I need to talk to Kiyah about something and I might need your help."

"What is it?"

"Not here. I'll tell you later." Daniel's gaze strayed to Lydia. She stood across the room, a cell phone pressed against her ear and a scowl etched on her fine-boned face.

"Well then, I guess we are gonna have a show tonight." They finished their coffee and McKay had to admit the trip into Colorado Springs was worth the cup of fresh brewed java. He'd even suffer the screeching of the band in concert if it meant access to more of heaven in a mug.

"You were right about one thing. She makes one heck of a good cup of coffee." His expression turned thoughtful, "I wonder if Mr. Woolsey would let us bring her back to Atlantis with us."

"Maybe." Carson sipped at his drink and watched the barista, "I'd even make the switch to coffee if she made it." He blushed again as his friends teased him, but he still felt Kiyah's soft hair brushing his face when she'd dived over the counter and into his arms. Maybe his stay at the SGC wouldn't be so bad after all. Maybe he could be normal, for just a little while.

۞۞۞


	4. You're Missing

A/N: This chapter contains major spoilers for The Kindred II and The Seed.

**Chapter 4**

**You're Missing**

Lydia Harper paced across her office. Ten strides to the window, seven to the door, seven to the desk and ten back to the window. She was not happy; not happy at all. The morning had started badly with the phone call. Then the rain and then that miserable espresso machine and the equally miserable excuses for employees she'd inherited. God, she hated Colorado Springs. Shitty little Podunk town populated by redneck hicks and Air Force jet jocks; although some of the jet jocks made for intriguing late night one on one amusement. Too bad that the one thing they were good for most of them were not so good at. Still, physical pastimes withstanding; Lydia hated Colorado Springs.

"I doubt it." She spoke into the sleek silver cell phone as she paced, her face pinched in a sour expression.

"They don't know anything. They can suspect and speculate all they want, but there is nothing there for them to find." She turned her back to the window, leaned against the sill. "I think he's close. He has someone helping him."

She listened. "No, I don't know who, but when I find out and I will find out, they'll wish they'd never gotten involved."

She pushed off the sill, stalked across the room to the desk. "That's why you sent me to this shit hole. To handle problems like this. I am handling it; I just need more time."

Lydia booted up the notebook computer on the desk and quickly scrolled through a series of secure files. She clicked open the desired document and added a note as the voice on the phone droned through a complicated explanation of her assignment. She was bored; she'd heard all of this before and it was wearing on her nerves to listen again. She knew the successful completion of the assignment was critical to the organization. She knew her status as a top operative rested on her ability to complete this assignment.

"Fine. Three days then. You do realize, of course, that a more radical definition of discretion may be needed?" She scowled as she listened.

"Yes, of course. I always plan for these...contingencies. I have what I need."

"No, that won't be necessary. I'm very close and I'm sure I can get the information before the deadline. You just make sure my fee is adjusted accordingly and the money paid into the account as I've instructed."

She listened again, "And Dylan. Never threaten me or tell me how to do my job again; or you just might find yourself on the receiving end of my unique...talents…at the negotiations table."

Lydia snapped the cell phone shut, abruptly ending the conversation before the man on the other end could reply. She was sick of it all. The directives, the threats, the petty bureaucrats wrapped in red tape and power plays giving her orders and expecting results after they'd tied her hands. Oh they wanted results and they didn't care what she did to get them; they just freaked out when things didn't fall like perfect dominoes in their neatly ordered little worlds. They wanted the rose garden; sans the shit that made it grow.

Too bad, Lydia decided. She would complete this assignment as instructed and if she paid out a little collateral damage from the smothering frustration of dealing with the red tape pencil pushers; so be it. She was fine with that; in fact, she was actually looking forward to it. She might even send a little out to her loyal employees.

She looked at the phone clenched in her fist and hurled it across the room. It left a satisfactory dent in the wall at the point of impact. Lydia imagined doing the same thing with Dylan's head. Pipsqueak. She decided he'd be her delivery boy when it came to final payment and she'd gladly give him a payment he'd never forget.

She took a deep breath, cleansing her mind and body of the tension she'd held since she walked through the door. The coffee house, while excellent cover for her assignment, eroded her nerves like acid on iron. She hated this place; she hated the patrons and she hated the employees. She had a feeling it was mutual. She'd considered bringing them on board, recruiting them for her assignment but quickly dismissed that as A Very Bad Idea. Jill was too stupid; Tim too stoned; and Kiyah too...well she wasn't sure how she'd classify Kiyah. She knew she was trouble, yeah, that's it...trouble with a capital T. Kiyah seemed to know things, see things, things that she couldn't possibly have known or seen without snooping through Lydia's private office. Problem was, Lydia had no proof; just a gut feeling that ate away at her like an ulcer. Kiyah was a problem and Lydia didn't like problems.

Lydia scrolled through the computer file again, tapping keys, adding additional notes. She looked at the photographs that she'd snapped when she came into the shop. She'd recognized the archeologist immediately; the others were strangers and she wasted little time identifying them. She hacked into the secure database of the most secret organization in the world; laughing at how easy it had been to obtain the codes that allowed her to bypass the normal security channels. Lydia downloaded the profiles she wanted and settled back in her chair. She skimmed the data, filing it away for future reference. Her eyes widened at one profile in particular. She read it again, making detailed notes. She paused, thinking as she tapped a slim gold pen against her teeth.

This new development had possibilities. Lydia turned the information over in her mind; compared known to unknown, her assignment against opportunity. Could they even be related? She hadn't considered that prospect, but then she hadn't had full access to the database until a few hours ago. There was a way to turn this to her advantage; she knew it. But how? The pieces of the puzzle fell into place and she realized that her assignment had suddenly become much more lucrative than she'd ever imagined.

Lydia smiled and retrieved her phone from its crash landing site.

۞۞۞

Carson Beckett strolled through the misty drizzle, hands in his pockets; his face turned up toward the sky. It had been so long since he'd felt the rain in his face. He left Rodney and Jennifer at the hotel when they left the coffee shop. He'd lasted in the small stuffy hotel room all of three minutes before the restlessness flooded through him. He had to get out of that smothering confining room. He promised his friends he'd meet them later, in time for the concert.

He walked along the nearly deserted street with no particular destination in mind. It was enough to just be outside, walking, without an armed escort. The wind blew from the northwest, adding teeth to the storm. Carson thought of home. Scotland. _Could he go home? Would he be welcomed? Was it worth it to try?_

He thought about his rescue and his homecoming to Atlantis. Dr. Carson Beckett, dead. Dr. Elizabeth Weir, dead. Dr. Kate Heightmeyer, dead. So many others, names and faces he'd never even known, dead. "_For two years I thought about what it would be like coming home to Atlantis. This isn't quite how I'd pictured it." _There was an understatement. He figured he shouldn't really be surprised that so much had changed. Two years was a long time in a galaxy corrupted by deception with danger lurking in every corner. The shocks had come, one after another, piled on his shoulders in Rodney's typical blunt approach, until he collapsed into the chair. Thank God someone had the foresight to provide furniture; otherwise he'd still be sitting on the floor.

He remembered the look on Rodney's face; the way the man tried to avoid his eyes. _Could he do that to his family? Walk into their lives after two years and expect open arms and open hearts? Did he even have the right to try? And then there's that nagging little problem of them not being his family; not really. _He closed his eyes, leaned against a lamp post. He could see his mum's face, every line, every crease in that kind, time worn face. He'd inherited his father's rugged good looks and dark hair, but he had his mum's eyes. Clear summer sky blue, his mum's eyes looked at him every time he looked in the mirror. It was his and his alone. Of his siblings, only he had been gifted with blue eyes.

Carson sighed, thinking about the pain that wrung his heart like a sponge as Rodney laid truth upon truth at his feet in that room. God, it had hurt so much; to have lost so much and then to find that it had never really been his in the first place. He remembered Teyla; her shock and fear and his betrayal. He remembered the pain in her eyes as she realized he wasn't the real Carson Beckett. It had hurt, more then he'd admitted to Rodney as he recounted his failure from that infirmary bed. He didn't think he could stand to see that kind of pain in his family's eyes. To them he was dead. Maybe it was better if he stayed that way.

He rubbed a heavy hand over his face, wiping away the rain and the hot moisture gathering in his eyes. He was grateful for the rain; no one noticed the tears. He shoved away from the lamp post, walked on, glancing in store front windows and letting his thoughts tumble like pebbles on a surf battered beach. A poster in a window advertised a concert for a local band. Curious, he entered the music store, stepping out of the rain. He left a few minutes later, iPod and a freshly downloaded selection of music in hand and resumed his walk down the street.

He didn't notice the black SUV parked against the curb across the street. He didn't notice the man with the cell phone snap his picture as he entered and left the store. He didn't notice the man walking behind him, stopping when he stopped, and walking when he walked. Lost in his own thoughts, Carson Beckett didn't notice the driver of the SUV signal the men on the street. He noticed the man that bumped into him. He noticed the quick spike of something sharp in his neck. He noticed as the world tilted sickeningly and the strong hands that held him tight around his arms and a large black truck and then Carson noticed nothing at all.

۞۞۞

Rodney paced, fuming. "Where the hell is Carson? He was supposed to meet us back here an hour ago." He pointed at his watch for emphasis.

"I don't know. Maybe he went back to the coffee shop already. He did seem to like Kiyah." Jennifer thought it made perfect sense that Carson would return to Caffiends. He had hit it off with Kiyah and if they spent a little time together, well Jennifer figured that would be as good for what ailed Carson as any antidote she had manufactured.

"Oh please. He's been on the planet less than 12 hours and he's already Kirking the locals? That's Sheppard; not Carson." Rodney folded his arms across his chest as he glared at Keller. "He's found trouble; or more likely trouble's found him. Michael managed to reproduce that particular trait just fine."

"Rodney, relax. I'm sure he's fine. He's just out for a walk. Let him enjoy his freedom. God knows, he's earned it." Jennifer laid a hand on the agitated man's arm. "If he doesn't make it back to the coffee shop, he's probably found something else to do."

"But what if he's sick? What if the treatment doesn't last seven days? What if..."

"Rodney, he's fine. His condition is stable. Physically he's fine. Both Dr. Lam and I gave him a clean bill of health. But you have to admit, he's going through a lot right now. He spent two years living under God knows what with Michael, thinking he's Carson Beckett. Then we rescue him and tell him he's a clone. He learns he's dying and we put him in stasis for two months. We finally develop a stable serum to reverse the cellular deterioration and I get absorbed by some hideous alien spore that tries to turn me and Atlantis into a hive ship. He develops a treatment; saves me, Atlantis, Ronon, and Colonel Sheppard. And what do we do? We send him through the stargate to be interrogated by the IOA. He needs time, Rodney, to deal with it all." Jennifer's voice softened. "We all do."

"Fine. But I still think it's irresponsible to just walk off and leave us and not let us know that he's going to be late." Rodney frowned, looked at his watch again. "And speaking of late, where's Jackson?"

"Right here Dr. McKay." Daniel stood behind the astrophysicist, enjoying his squeak of surprise.

"Well you don't have to go sneaking up on people, you know. You could give somebody a heart attack doing that. Tell him, Dr. Keller."

"Rodney..." she laughed and shook her head at his flustered expression.

"We...ah...should be going. Is Dr. Beckett joining us?"

"How should I know? He went out for a walk and we haven't seen him since." Rodney's worry manifested as annoyance.

"He might have gone back to the coffee shop already." Jennifer offered.

Daniel nodded. "Yeah, he seemed to hit it off with Kiyah."

"Yes, yes, yes. He likes Coffee Barista Barbie. Can we please go now?"

"After you." Daniel held the door for Rodney and Jennifer as each of them silently wondered exactly where Dr. Beckett was.

۞۞۞


	5. Lion's Den

**Chapter 5**

**Lion's Den**

Carson woke to darkness. He heard voices, muffled and indistinct, speaking near him. He felt hands grab his arms, pulling him to his feet and the rough cloth of a sack over his head. _Oh God...not again. Michael found him. How? How could he have made it to the Milky Way galaxy? "You've served your purpose"; Michael spoke those very words right before he pulled the trigger of the stunner in his hand. What could Michael want with him now?_

Terror knifed through him and fueled his struggle. Carson fought the hands and the voices, lashed out with bound hands and a desperation born of panic and fear and pain. He connected a solid hard punch to something soft and yielding. Felt the satisfying crunch of breaking bone under his fist and heard the cursing of the recipients as his blows connected.

It was a short, one sided fight. Adrenaline-charged and terror-fueled, he was still only one man against a pack. And it didn't take the pack long to change the course and direction of the fight. Carson took a hard blow to the belly that folded him double and knocked the breath from his lungs. He sank to his knees, hunched against the pain as hands grasped his arms and hauled him to his feet. He spun, absorbed another concrete blow to the ribs and took a face plant into something unyielding. Spun again, this time his head slammed back against that same rock hard surface. He watched as silver stars exploded across his field of vision. He staggered, swayed and like a prize fighter gone one round too many, crumpled in a boneless heap on the ground.

۞۞۞

Carson woke to brightness. He slammed his eyes shut against the glaring white brilliance of the room, groaning as pain lanced through his head. He brought his hands, bound tightly at the wrist, to his face. Gingerly, with the sensitive fingers of a healer, he assessed the damage. One split lip; a swollen painful right eye; sticky wetness over the same; and a tender lump on the back of his head. Great. Add that to the headache and budding nausea and it's a minor concussion, at least. He continued on; ribs definitely bruised, stomach likely the same. All in all he'd had his ass thoroughly and completely kicked. At least the hood was gone and he wasn't restrained and immobilized against unyielding furniture.

He wondered where he was. He wondered how he'd gotten here, wherever here was. He wondered who had brought him here and he wondered why he'd been brought here. Thinking hurt. Breathing hurt. The brightness hurt. Hell, lying motionless hurt. Carson squeezed his eyes tighter and sought out the dark. It was easier to find than it should have been. The rational clinical doctor said "stay awake". The beaten battered prisoner said "fuck it" and claimed unity with the darkness.

۞۞۞

Carson woke to brightness, loudness and wetness. The sudden shock of ice water in his face and loud voices in his ear yanked him from blissful unawareness to startling clarity. He lifted his hand to wipe the water from his face and panicked when his arm refused to obey his command. His eyes widened; the blue vivid in his fear. He was seated; his arms restrained by thin plastic flex ties to the arms of a hard metal chair. Icy cold water soaked his hair and clothes, leaching heat from his battered body. He shook his head slightly, tossing water soaked hair from his eyes. His headache flared behind his eyes, the silver stars joined by red swirls and blue sparks. "_How lovely; my own private fireworks show."_

He looked around for the person who had restrained him and thrown the water over him. No one was there. The loud voices were stilled and the silence was deafening. He felt a chill prickle on the back of his neck and knew someone was watching him. The watcher smiled, satisfied with his discomfort.

"Who's there? What do ye want with me?" Fear and pain thickened his accent and he hated how weak and shaky his voice sounded.

The watcher waited. Patience was a virtue and the watcher was richly blessed.

"Please. What do ye want?" Carson twisted his wrist against the bindings, testing the strength of the ties. "Look, if its money ye want...just take it. Just take it and leave me be. I won't tell. Please."

He looked around again, his harsh breathing loud in the stillness of the room. He took deep breaths, trying to calm the panic and slow his racing heart. The watcher remained silent, observing the frightened captive with clinical detachment.

"Who are ye? Why have ye brought me here?" Carson tried again. He was sure someone was watching him. He pulled at the restraints again and pushed back the memories of Michael and restraints and mind probes. His breathing accelerated; his heart rate kept pace as the memories crowded his mind and threatened to overwhelm him.

"Please..." he whispered. "Please...just tell me what ye want."

The watcher smiled again, pulled open the door and left the room without speaking a word.

۞۞۞

Kiyah Menomonee worked the upper floor of Caffiends; one eye towards her duties, the other watching for the people she'd met earlier. The place was filling fast and she'd be hard pressed to keep the recommended table open for the group if they didn't show soon. She chased off another group of rowdy amorous frat boys, directing them to a front row table and Jill. Her colleague had changed clothes for the evening festivities, sporting a black-leather micro mini that looked more belt than skirt. Mile high spike heeled boots and a tiny white T shirt completed Jill's Goth pro look. The frat boys noticed and appreciating the view, made a bee line for the provocative sprite.

The door jangled again and tickets exchanged hands as Dr. Jackson and his friends entered the crowded coffee house. Daniel caught Kiyah's eye as she waved them up the broad plank stairs and the table she'd been holding for them.

"Finally, I was beginning to wonder if you were going to make it."

"Well, we had a little trouble. Seems Dr. Beckett went out for a walk after they left here and they," Daniel nodded at Rodney and Jennifer, "haven't seen him since. They were hoping he came back here."

"Nope. I haven't seen him. I can ask Jill, but she's a little preoccupied right now." Kiyah glanced over her shoulder where Jill was delivering coffee beverages and fending off frat boys with equal dexterity.

"Maybe he lost track of time and will show up later." Kiyah shrugged and hoped her disappointment didn't show too plainly on her face. She liked the handsome man with the clear blue eyes and shy smile and looked forward to seeing him again.

"Yes and maybe pigs will speak Latin and time will run backwards. Carson's in trouble." Rodney folded his arms across his chest, a scowl etched firmly on his face.

"He's only been gone for a little while, Rodney. He'll turn up." Jennifer tried to lighten his mood.

"Right. It's when and how and in what shape he'll turn up I'm concerned about. The man attracts trouble like he's genetically programmed for it or something."

"I'm gonna have to go with Dr. Keller on this one McKay. Dr. Beckett will turn up. He probably just wanted some personal time to himself."

"Tell you what; I'll go talk to Charlie, tell him what Dr. Beckett looks like and ask him to keep an eye out. If he shows up, Charlie can send him up here." Kiyah leaned in, her voice soft.

"Kiyah!" Lydia's brittle voice carried across the floor.

"So that's one coffee and two mochas; one skinny, one high octane. Anything else?" Kiyah rattled off the coffee order as Lydia swept to their table.

"Yes Lydia?" Kiyah's eyebrow arched in inquiry.

The other woman frowned. "You have other tables, yes?"

"And I'm on it right now." The barista smiled at Lydia and eased her way past the taller woman. Lydia gazed down her narrow nose at the trio seated at the table, her eyes hard and sharp and cold. She let her gaze linger on Jackson, her head titled slightly, as if she were reading into him and discovered a language she couldn't quite grasp. She smiled at them, a frigid gesture that failed to touch her eyes as she spun on her heel and stalked off.

"What was that?" Rodney shivered despite the stuffiness of the overcrowded room. "It must be fifty degrees colder in here."

"No kidding. And she's always like that?" Jennifer found it hard to believe the coffee house could stay in business when the owner's personality was so chilling.

"Pretty much, yes. If it weren't for the others, I think this place would have closed as soon as she took over running it." Daniel watched Lydia, the thoughtful expression on his face almost a mirror of the one she'd worn moments ago.

Kiyah delivered the steaming beverages to their table while keeping a wary eye on her boss. She lingered briefly, wiping a towel over a non-existent spill. "I need to talk to you tonight." Her voice was pitched low, for Daniel's ears only. "I have something I need to show you."

She pushed the towel closer to Daniel's hand and slid a business card sized piece of paper under it. Kiyah straightened quickly. "I'm afraid you'll have to order any other drinks at the bar."

"Right." Daniel nodded as she slipped between tables. Jackson slid the paper under his hand. His eyes widened slightly at the note, but he said nothing and slipped it into his shirt pocket as the band struck the first notes of their opening set. He smiled lightly at Jennifer's and Rodney's questioning looks and mouthed 'later' to them.

Lydia watched from the shadows across the room. She was sure Kiyah had handed something to Dr. Jackson, but again, she had no proof. If Kiyah was Jackson's assistant in this little project, she was damned good at it. Lydia was willing to concede that point to the other woman. "_Yes, you're good; but I'm the best. And, I'm moving the game to a whole new level."_ Lydia smirked, her thoughts on the new twists and the higher stakes in the game. "_You have no idea who or what you are dealing with. None of you do. And I can't wait to show you." _

She smiled again and stepped out of the shadows. The night was early, but Lydia needed the extra time. She was a very busy woman and would need every minute if she was going to succeed. And she would succeed. Of that she had no doubt. The only thing Lydia Harper hated more than Colorado Springs, was failure. And tonight, failure was not an option.

۞۞۞

Carson swallowed hard, his throat dry and constricted from fear and lack of water. The soft click of the door opening and closing behind him confirmed that someone had, indeed, been in the room watching him. It was unnerving; downright creepy even, knowing that someone had been standing behind his back while he sat bound and helpless. It shook him more than he cared to admit to have been the object of scrutiny while he asked questions and tried to comprehend what was happening to him.

"_Why won't they speak to me? Who are they? The IOA?"_ As far as he knew, the IOA didn't make a practice of kidnapping people off the street, beating them up and locking them away in prison cells. Prison cell, the thought jump started the panic, spiked adrenaline through his veins and hummed against his nerves.

"_Out, I have to get out."_ Carson struggled against the thin flex ties strapped around his wrists. The ties bit into his skin, sharp and cruel and cutting, slicing flesh and letting his blood flow. The logical rational doctor said _"calm down, you're only making it worse."_ The battered frightened captive whimpered and struggled harder.

He pulled harder, sliced deeper. The ties were slick with his blood and it ran down his hands, puddled under the chair. The steady splat of blood on blood played counterpoint to his harsh breathing. He gave up. The ties weren't going to break and they weren't going to slip over his hands. He was bound, restrained, until someone else decided to let him go.

He shivered, cold in his wet clothes and the chilly room. The cold amplified his misery and despair. "_How had this happened? How had he been so careless as to let down his guard?"_ Rodney and Jennifer would look for him, but it would be hours yet before they worried.

The adrenaline ebbed, leaving behind nausea and pain. Fight or flight. He'd tried for both, made a fair imitation of a tackling dummy; tried again and ground his wrists into hamburger. He wished someone, anyone, even the creepy silent watcher, would come back. Maybe they'd show a little mercy; let him bandage his wrists, have a drink of water, let him go. "_Yeah right. You're screwed, as Rodney would so bluntly state it. Have to agree with you on that one Dr. McKay."_

The cold and the pain and the fear and the quiet were too much. Carson flirted with the darkness on the edge of his awareness. The darkness made a better companion, he decided, and he reached for it once again. His head slumped forward, chin on chest as he closed his eyes to his misery and drifted away into velvety blackness.

۞۞۞

Lydia leaned against the railing overlooking the lower level of the coffee house. The band really wasn't as bad as she'd expected and the noise made a perfect cover for the conversations she had with a man seated at the corner table on the lower level. She was pleased with her foresight; hiring the intermediary had been a stroke of genius. She watched the tables below, the comings and goings of people as they mingled and laughed and swayed to the music. Her eyes roved the crowd, searched out one man in particular. He met her eyes with a smile, checked his watch and turned back to his companions.

She watched the man for a moment longer before she turned her back to the railing and studied the crowd on the upper level. Kiyah paid an inordinate amount of attention to the small table in the north corner of the shop. Lydia smiled as she gazed at the trio occupied in coffee and conversation at that table. They seemed to be on edge, as if they were waiting for something to happen. She remembered the quiet archeologist from his earlier visits. He seemed to be watching the man Lydia had acknowledged a few minutes ago. Not that it made a difference to Lydia. Dr. Daniel Jackson could watch him all he wanted; it wouldn't make a difference in the plan now in motion.

Jackson was no longer critical. Lydia had determined that earlier in the day when she'd profiled his companions. True, he had knowledge she'd been paid to retrieve, but she was certain, now, that her earlier suspicions were true. He had someone helping him and that person was the true target. Lydia considered her options as she watched the group. The dynamics of the small group were telling; unfortunately they weren't telling her what she wanted to know. She frowned, pulled her lip with her teeth as she regarded the room. A blur of blond hair caught her attention and she lasered in on the owner. Kiyah. The unknown. The troublemaker. The one who paid a great deal of attention to Dr. Jackson and his friends...perhaps too much attention.

Lydia's focus sharpened as the thickset man with the tufty receding hair and fast mouth approached Kiyah's station behind the coffee bar. Kiyah took the order, nodded, smiled and produced beverages as the man leaned against the counter. He laid a small PDA type device on the counter as he took the drinks from her. Lydia raised an eyebrow when he walked back to his table and left the device behind. Kiyah noticed it before Lydia made it halfway across the room. She scowled as the barista picked it up and slipped it into the pocket of her apron. Kiyah didn't notice the little gadget glow in her hand. Lydia did. She studied the barista, frowning in speculation. She smiled as she considered the implications. Another tumbler clicked and Lydia realized she was close to unlocking much more than the secret Dr. Jackson concealed.

۞۞۞


	6. All I'm Thinkin' About

A/N: To everyone who has been reading this, thank you. To those of you, who have added this story to your alerts, thank you. And to those of you who have left me a review, thank you. I appreciate hearing from you. And to everyone else who has dropped in for a quick look, thanks. I appreciate all of you taking your time to read this story.

**Chapter 6**

**All I'm Thinkin' About**

Kiyah cleared mugs and plates from tables as the last of the concert goers drifted out the door. She was tired. The concert had drawn a crowd and the band responded to their enthusiastic enjoyment of the show and played an extra set. Jill and Tim hustled about the lower level of Caffiends, clearing away the detritus of a successful party. Daniel, Rodney and Jennifer were among the last to leave, wandering out with a promise to meet Kiyah at her apartment.

She ran a hand through her hair, pushed bangs from her sweat-damp forehead and sighed. It had been a long day and she wasn't looking forward to meeting Daniel. Kiyah frowned at the upper bar. It resembled a minor disaster zone, dishes discarded across tables and napkins littered the floor, oversized snowflakes scattered and trampled in random drifts across the floor. Laughter echoed off the high ceiling as Tim and Jill joked and worked below.

Kiyah cleared another table; piled crockery in the bin she balanced on one hip as she considered the day's events. Daniel's appearance, visitors in tow, had been a complete surprise. He had begged off from the concert over a month ago. It didn't make sense that he'd shown up, unless he found something. But then again, maybe all he wanted was some decent coffee. She considered that possibility and dismissed it. She knew him well enough to know he preferred the quiet clutter of his office to the louder coffee house. So he must have found something or he wouldn't be here. Kiyah rubbed a hand across her face, as if to wipe away the fatigue. Damned circular logic, it gave her a headache.

She thought about the meeting six months ago, when she showed him the photograph. He had gotten very quiet and studied it intently, his coffee forgotten. He sat, absorbed in the photograph and scribbled notes on a napkin. He'd been surprised when Kiyah slipped him a notebook. She answered his questions; he had a lot of questions. "_Where did you find this? Is there more? Can you get back? Will you show me?"_

She smiled at the memory. He had been like a little kid who'd just discovered Santa Claus lived down the block. Kiyah took him deep into the Utah backcountry to the canyon where she had found the pictographs etched into the russet sandstone. Together they explored the narrow twisty canyon, discovered more drawings and finally found the mother lode. Daniel practically danced with excitement when Kiyah found the Ancient script engraved in the rock. He'd nearly fainted when he found the granary perched precariously on the edge of the cliff some 150 feet over the canyon floor. Climbing gear had not been high on the list of supplies so Kiyah free climbed the rock wall, photographed the small prehistoric storage chamber and retrieved the smooth silvery box within.

The box was a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Smooth, cool, polished, the craftsmanship was exquisite and well beyond the ability of even the most skilled Anasazi artisans. Kiyah had asked questions of her own. "_What was it? Where did it come from? Who made it?"_ Her persistence paid off and Daniel finally signed her on as his assistant. Kiyah proved a quick study; she learned the language of the Ancients easily. She also learned that translating a language wasn't automatically synonymous with success in unlocking the box.

Whatever secrets the box held, it held them securely. Daniel had not been able to unlock the thing. He spent several frustrating weeks and two additional trips to the canyon, collected more photographs and notes. It was a puzzle that had so far defied solution. Daniel read dusty old books, scrolls, wrote notes and sketched diagrams; measured, weighed, poked and prodded and yet the box remained stubbornly sealed. Kiyah's curiosity grew in proportion to his frustration with the box. They were close, she knew it, could feel it. Close to unlocking the box and solving its mystery. _Maybe this meeting would be the one._ Kiyah sighed as she cleared another table. _That damned box; it was almost an obsession. "If we don't solve this soon; I think I will go crazy."_

Kiyah shook her head, pushed her hair off her face and wiped down the table. She had an idea she wanted to run by Daniel, even though it was late. And she needed to talk to him about the package she'd received earlier this week. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she felt off, as if her world were in a state of suspended animation, holding its breath, just waiting for the spark that would release the energy contained. Restless and edgy, Kiyah glanced around, looking for Lydia. No sign of the boss. "_Good. If I can finish this level, maybe I can bail before she finds another job for me. I really do have better things to do than stick around here."_

She picked up her pace and cleared the last of the tables in her section. Jill and Tim laughed and joked and traded rude insults. Kiyah tuned them out, consumed by her thoughts of the box, its mysteries and Daniel's unexpected appearance at the coffee shop. She didn't join her colleagues in their banter and she didn't notice as Lydia watched her from the shadows. She didn't notice the calculated look in Lydia's eyes as she studied the barista. Kiyah ran her hands through her hair again, glanced around and shrugged. She hauled the bin of dishes back to the counter and frowned slightly when she felt something hard pressed against her leg. She slipped the little PDA out of her pocket, remembered it belonged to the coffee addict who'd helped her repair the espresso machine. "_Gotta get that back to him_," she thought as she returned it to her pocket and finished cleaning the room.

۞۞۞

Lydia locked the door behind her employees. She pinched the bridge of her nose as she attempted to ward off the headache building behind her eyes. She retreated to the confines of her office and the work that waited. She logged into the computer, called up a file and watched. Now if the subject of the surveillance would just cooperate. Lydia had planted the video transmitter on Daniel weeks ago, sneaking it into his briefcase. The little transmitter allowed her to track his movements and shed light on a life, which by her standards, was beyond dull.

The man lived for his work, appeared to have no social life and when he was home, he was alone. He'd struck up a friendship with Kiyah a few months ago and started spending more time at the coffee shop. His interest in the barista had allowed Lydia access and made her assignment easier. Then she'd learned about the mystery box they found deep in the Utah desert. The discovery of that artifact stirred excitement in the organization and led to Lydia's current assignment. Access the SGC; acquire knowledge about the artifact and acquire the artifact itself. And leave no trace.

The access part had been easy. That's what the flyboys were for. Lydia's lips twisted in a sneer as she recalled how easy it had been to get what she wanted. A simple promise of a night in bed and they dropped information faster than they shed their clothes. Lydia ran a hand over the slim silver case on her desk, examining the vials and the syringes within. She picked up a vial, rolled it between her fingers and sighed. Soon, very soon she would be using this, as soon as she knew who she needed to use it on. The acquisition part wasn't going so well, but Lydia had no doubt, that, once she had the right person, it would just be a matter of applying pressure. She clenched her hand around the pressure, reassured by its solid cool presence in her hand.

She turned back to the computer and studied the screen. The image of a blue eyed man stared back at her. She rolled the vial between the palms of her hands as she stared at his face. This man had knowledge, a vast wealth of knowledge that would advance the cause of the organization. She frowned as she considered the best method for acquiring this knowledge. Lydia turned her attention back to the case, selected another vial. She smiled, cold and reptilian, as her mind drifted back to the last time she'd used this one. She acquired the information, but the subject hadn't faired well during the process. He'd faired not at all when it was over. Lydia drummed her fingers in a snappy rhythm on the desk. If the subject refused to share, she just might have to use more extreme tactics. Lydia smiled, settled back in the chair and considered her options.

۞۞۞

He didn't hear the soft click that heralded the opened door. He didn't feel the slight draft of air caress his skin when the door shifted. He didn't notice the knife when it sliced the ties from his wrists. Carson remained still; his chin slumped against his chest as his benefactor carried a tray of supplies into his prison. The man placed the tray on the floor, turned to the prisoner and gave him a vicious kick in the side.

Pain exploded across Carson's ribs and chest. He slammed to the tile floor, his breath knocked from constricted lungs. He panted; pain and fear locked his breathing in shallow hitching wheezes.

"What do ye want?" his voice harsh and raspy against a bone dry throat. "Who are ye? What do ye want wi' me?" He squinted at his captor through a haze of tears.

The man looked at him, his features twisted with utter contempt. He turned away from the injured physician and walked out the door. He did not look at Carson again.

Beckett lay curled on his side, his arms wrapped around his battered body. He breathed slow and shallow, regained control of the pain. Muscles screamed in protest and cramped when he finally moved. He hurt; a deep grinding pain that eroded his strength. He felt weak, lack of water and food compounded his misery. He lay on the floor a long time before he noticed the tray.

Bottled water, food and bandages sat tantalizingly close, agonizingly distant. Although the supplies were only a few feet away, Carson wasn't sure he had the strength to reach them. He knew he had to try. The logical rational doctor was back, calmly directing him to take it slowly, one step at a time, lad. "_Ye can do it; ye have to. No one is going to help ye; ye have to help yerself." _ The beaten battered man slid along the floor, inched his way to the tray and the relief it promised.

Carson reached the tray, grabbed for the water and tried not to notice the shaking in his hands. He twisted the top off the bottle, drank deeply, long swallows of cool water soothing his parched throat. "_Not too much; not too fast, lad. Don't want it comin' back on ye." _ The doctor voice cautioned. He stopped, returned the bottle to the tray. He breathed harder and fought twin waves of nausea and dizziness. Thirst slackened, Carson reached for the bandages. The cuts on his wrists were deep; the crushed and bruised flesh still oozed blood.

He looked around the room and noticed the small sink. He sighed; he really should clean the cuts before he bandaged them. "_Nothing for it, lad; it has to be done. Slow and steady,_" the doctor again. Carson wished he didn't know what he knew. He wished he could ignore the voice even though he knew he couldn't afford an infection. He felt his strength draining from him and he shuddered, thinking what it would be like if he didn't get out of here soon.

He rolled to his knees and with sheer determination lurched to his feet. He swayed like a drunk who'd stayed in the pub until last call but remained more or less upright as he staggered a not so straight line to the sink. He collapsed against the counter and turned on the tap. Rusty water dribbled out of the spigot; the sink hadn't been used in a long time. He groaned, pain and frustration pushing him to his limit.

"Bloody unfair" he whispered to the wall. His hands trembled harder as he bandaged his wrists. His fingers were stiff with cold and his movements clumsy and he dropped the bandages more than once before he completed the task. He swayed, unsteady on his feet and wondered if he had the strength to make it back to the tray and the rest of the water. He wondered if his captors had left him any pain medication. He'd give almost anything for a shot of the good stuff.

Carson wavered on his feet as he made his way back to the tray. The dizziness washed over him like a tidal wave, reminded him of the head injury. He touched the lump on the back of his head, winced as stiff fingers met tender flesh and crusty hair. He staggered his way toward the trays; there were four of them now, swirling around each other, morphing into one and then back to four again. He blinked, tried to force the trays to remain merged into a single image. The effort spiked the pain in his head and he crashed to his knees on the hard tile floor. He groaned and slithered along the floor, reached for the tray and the water.

Another swallow of cool liquid settled his stomach. He lay curled on his side, the water bottle gripped tightly in his hand. He was afraid if he let go they'd take it away. The water, the bandages were small kindnesses in this prison. He curled tighter, looked for warmth in his damp clothes, found none. Carson gave up looking for warmth on the floor. He rolled to his knees again, crawled to the wall.

He braced his hands against the wall, pressed against it and made his way to his feet. He leaned against the wall, used it for balance and shuffled forward as he explored his cell. White tile floor, hard and cold under his feet, white walls, high ceiling with a single door. Carson examined the lock, tested the door handle. Locked, but then he hadn't expected otherwise. The room was barren of furniture, with the exception of the metal chair he'd been strapped into. It smelled sterile and metallic, almost coppery. He shuddered as he remembered and glanced away quickly from the darkened blood puddled under the chair. The small sink and a recessed partition with a toilet completed the cell's appointments. He leaned against the wall, looked up at the dark pane of glass. Six feet square, the smooth polished surface reflected his image back at him, stared at him like a malevolent Cyclops. He slid down the wall, pulled his knees to his chest and crossed his arms over his knees. Huddled in on himself to conserve the meager heat his body produced, Carson drifted into the darkness again.

۞۞۞


	7. Something in the Night

A/N: RoryFaller, Moonlight83, sylverskie, jennamajig; Poor Carson indeed. I promise, he will be getting some help in a couple of chapters down the road. And about that mystery box...

**Chapter 7**

**Something in the Night**

Kiyah answered the knock on the door and ushered in Daniel and his friends. Dr. McKay and Dr. Keller wore mirror expressions of worry, tinted with fear and hope.

"So you haven't heard from Carson?" McKay demanded before he stepped into Kiyah's apartment.

"Sorry, no. He never showed at Caffiends and no one remembers seeing him." She smiled an apology.

"I knew it. He's in trouble. Didn't I say he was in trouble? No one listens. We should have been looking for him. We should be looking for him."

"Rodney, calm down. Maybe he found a pub and lost track of time." Jennifer knew the excuse sounded desperate, even as she reassured McKay.

"Look, I need to talk to Daniel. When we're done, I'll go out with you; see if we can find your friend. I know a couple a bars where it's pretty easy to make friends and lose track of time." Kiyah offered.

"Fine. This isn't going to take long is it?"

Kiyah shrugged, "don't know. Guess it depends on what we have to say. Come on in. Can I get you anything? I've got coffee, beer and wine, some of the harder stuff." Kiyah picked up a glass and sipped a deep burgundy liquid.

She handed beers to Jackson and Keller and coffee to McKay as they settled themselves in her apartment. Jennifer looked around; Kiyah's apartment wasn't large but it was neat and comfortable. Pale sage green walls sported brightly painted canvases of desert scenes. The paintings were complimented by framed photographs and a large metal and glass sculpture occupied one corner of the room. Blonde wood chairs with chocolate cushions and a low slung glass table supported by a sandstone pedestal gave the room an organic cozy feeling. Jennifer relaxed into the thick cushions of the couch and wished she had furniture like this in her quarters on Atlantis.

Rodney guzzled coffee and paced the apartment. He was worried; they had left Stargate Command only a few hours ago and now Beckett was missing. He had too much experience to believe it a coincidence. It was too convenient; too perfect. Rodney didn't believe in coincidences; at least not where Carson was concerned. He had been down that road far too often and he knew, just knew, something was wrong. He might have teased the Scot about his interest in the coffee barista but he didn't think a little ribbing was enough to keep his friend away. "_Where the hell are you, Carson?"_ Lost in his thoughts and worry, he didn't notice Kiyah standing before him.

Kiyah watched the agitated man pace across the floor of her apartment. She wondered if he was aware of how much his face betrayed his emotions. She knew he was worried for his friend; she hadn't, until now, realized just how deep that worry ran. Kiyah frowned slightly, wondering if maybe he was right. Maybe his friend was in trouble.

"Dr. McKay." He walked past her, ignoring her outstretched hand.

"Dr. McKay." Kiyah snagged his sleeve and captured his attention. "You left this at the coffee shop." She offered the little PDA device.

Rodney looked at the life signs detector as it glowed brightly in Kiyah's hand. His eyes darted to her face, back to the detector, to Jennifer and Daniel and back to Kiyah.

"How'd you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Turn that on. How'd you do that?"

"I think that should be obvious McKay." Keller was on her feet as she stared at Kiyah.

"Ok, what? Why are you all looking at me like that?" Kiyah backed up a step, her eyes narrowed as she watched the doctors watching her.

"That device," Rodney waved at the LSD, "it only works for certain people..." he trailed off, at a loss for an explanation.

"Kiyah, very few people can use one of those. The ones that can have a specific gene in their DNA that allows them to interface with the device. All they have to do is touch it to turn it on." Jennifer picked up the explanation.

"So you're saying I have this gene? How do you know?"

"The thing's on isn't it? Give it to me." Rodney took the scanner and handed it to Jennifer. The screen darkened. She handed it to Kiyah. The screen glowed a bright luminous blue.

"Oh shit." Kiyah whispered. "This is a good thing...right?" She looked at the others as she tried to convince herself.

"Well people who have the ATA gene can use certain types of technology. We are still researching the types of devices it activates."

"So a lot of people have this gene, then?"

"No." Rodney shook his head. "There really aren't that many and the ones who do have it, well, not all of them are very proficient at using it to its full potential. In fact, we could use more people like you on the project."

"People like me?"

"Yes. You seem to have a natural aptitude for it. The life signs detector responded to you. You didn't have to work to make the technology work. It just did." Rodney reclaimed his prize.

"Can you do it?" Kiyah looked at Daniel, hope written large across her features.

"No. I can read the language and I know more about the Ancients' culture than most, but I don't have the gene."

"Kiyah, it's not a bad thing." Jennifer laid a gentle hand on the other woman's arm. "It's no different than the genes that give some people brown eyes and others blue."

"Yeah, sure. Ok." Kiyah's expression still showed more suspicion than conviction. She gave her head a quick shake. "Anyway, I just wanted to return that thing" she gestured at the LSD in McKay's hand, "and I need to talk to Daniel."

She turned to the archeologist. "Have you had any luck translating that last panel?"

He pulled his notes from his briefcase and set it on the floor. Lydia's miniature eye spy transmitted a clear image of legs: table, chair and human. It also picked up the voices clearly. Paper rustled as Daniel spread his notes across Kiyah's dining room table.

"This symbol appears seven times in seven different panels" Daniel tapped a figure sketched on a page. "I remember a reference to it in Dr. Brady Kensington's work on rock art of Native Americans of the Southwest published in 1968." Daniel rummaged around the briefcase, pulled another reference from the battered bag. "He interpreted it to mean 'spirit being'. I think the Ancients meant something more along the lines of mental energy. If they were researching ascension, it makes sense that they would be looking at the effects of separating mental energy from the physical being."

"Wait a minute. Are you saying the Ancients were researching ascension with the Indians in the American southwest?" Rodney's skepticism was evident in his voice.

"Yes. The Native people of this region had a very rich and detailed spiritual life. They believed all life was connected through energy; that energy was in a constant state of flux and flowed through all living matter, regardless how large or small the organism. They also believed that life force could be stored in inanimate objects, spirit totems, if you will, and that these spirit totems gave the person holding it the power or characteristic associated with that totem."

"And you've found one of these research outposts?"

"No. Well maybe..."

"I was hiking in southern Utah and found a panel of pictographs that I'd never seen before. The symbols were very different than anything else I'd seen in the area. So I took some pictures and showed them to Dr. Jackson." Kiyah spoke up from her corner of the table.

"When Kiyah showed me the pictures, I knew she had stumbled onto something connected to the Ancients. We know they were active in other parts of the world. There's no reason to think they wouldn't have been interested in this part of it as well."

"Why here though? What would bring them to this area?"

"I've been thinking about that. Energy vortexes." Kiyah snapped her fingers. "What if they discovered an energy vortex?"

"You mean like those New Agey crystal vision things?" Rodney raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, they're supposed to be all over New Mexico and Arizona. Utah has very similar geology and the tribes that lived in that area intermarried and traded extensively and about 10,000 years ago, the Anasazi just disappeared, pretty much without a trace."

"And the Ancients came to Earth about the same time. The time frame fits. Maybe the Ancients did teach the Anasazi to ascend. It would explain a lot of archeological mysteries." Daniel stared across the table, his eyes slightly unfocused as he gazed at something in a distant past only he could see.

"That's all well and good. Mystery solved. The primitives learned to ascend and left behind a few pictures and pots. So what? How does that help us find Carson?" Rodney brought them back to a more immediate problem.

"It doesn't. But it might explain what Kiyah found in that canyon. It doesn't explain, however, this." Daniel pulled the box out of his briefcase and laid it on the table.

Rodney pounced; his eyes alight with the promise of a shiny new Ancient toy. He scanned it with the LSD, frowned at the screen and scanned the box again.

"So what's in the box?"

"That would be the million dollar question. We haven't been able to open it."

"It's giving off some sort of faint energy reading. I don't recognize the pattern, but its definitely coming from inside the box." Rodney turned the detector away from the box. "Now that's odd. What…" his voice trailed off as he panned the detector slowly around Kiyah's apartment.

"What's odd?"

"Huh"

"What's odd? You said something was odd. What is it and why are you pointing that thing around my place?"

"I'm picking up a second energy signature, very similar to the one in the box, and its coming from…there." He pointed down the hallway and raised an eyebrow at Kiyah.

She shrugged. "I don't know what its reading, unless…wait, I'll be right back." She hurried down the hall and returned a few minutes later, a cardboard box that had seen better days wrapped in her arms and a rolled tube of laminated paper in her hand.

Kiyah dumped the box in a chair and pushed the photographs and Dr. Jackson's notes to one side of the table. She unrolled the tube and anchored the corners with small stones she took from a black square Japanese-style plate. Rodney stared at the topo map, confusion written in his features.

"We need to look at this from a different angle" she explained as she marked the map with small neat Xs in grease pencil. "I found the first pictographs here. Two weeks later I found more panels here and here. A month after that, Daniel found the next three here, here and here and we found the last one…here, when we found the box." Kiyah frowned at the map, grabbed a straight edge off the counter and connected the Xs.

Rodney leaned over Kiyah's shoulder and studied the map. His eyes widened in recognition. Outlined in red grease pencil on Kiyah's laminated topo map was a schematic drawing he'd seen many, many times before. The X representing the location of the box served as a central point. Equidistant from the central point, six Xs formed a six armed star, the same schematic the Ancients used to represent Atlantis in their database.

"Whoa, that looks like…"

"It can't be."

"It looks an awful lot like a schematic drawing representing Atlantis."

"That's because it is the same schematic." Rodney ran a hand through his hair; the short tufts stood straighter and gave him the appearance of an electrocuted hedgehog.

"What's Atlantis?" Kiyah asked the question softly, not surprised when the three doctors refused to meet her eyes. She folded her arms across her chest as she waited for an answer. Silence stretched, expanded and filled the room with heavy anticipation. No one wanted to break it. The stillness held, perfect in its lack of sound and motion. Kiyah could hear her heartbeat, felt it merge and blend with the flow of time measured and counted by the softly ticking watch strapped around her wrist. She held her face expressionless and waited.

"It's a city…of the Ancients." Daniel finally spoke as he stared at the map. "It's where the people who made this" he placed a hand on the silver box "once lived."

"And I'm gonna jump way out on the limb and guess it's not under the Mediterranean Sea like so many scholars have speculated." Kiyah directed the comment to the archeologist.

"Ah…no. It's nowhere close to there."

Kiyah nodded, absorbed the information and turned it over in her head as she processed it. She studied McKay and Keller carefully, her eyes narrowed as they squirmed under her scrutiny. "So it's a trip through the Stargate to get there then?"

"How in the hell would you know that?" The words were out before Rodney could censor them.

"I know about the Stargate program Dr. McKay. I've even been through the thing. It's just not something that I advertise. And based on your reaction" Kiyah tilted her head at him, "I'd guess you've either been there or are planning to go there."

Rodney stared at the blond woman, his eyes wide. His mouth moved, opened and closed in an accurate imitation of a landed fish. He couldn't have been more astounded than if the Wraith came marching two by two, up the hallway in Kiyah's apartment.

Daniel cleared his throat and caught their attention. "It doesn't matter now. What does matter is how did this get here and how do we get the box opened?"

"If the Ancients did build it and left it behind, why this particular area?" Keller pointed at the map. "What is it about this place that makes it so special?"

Daniel stared at the map, his forehead creased in concentration. "Ley lines!"

"What?"

"Ley lines. Some people believe that they are pathways between sacred sites. If these Ancients were as powerful and knowledgeable as you claim, and they were capable of building something like this" Kiyah tapped the silver box, "they would have appeared as gods to the Anasazi. Anywhere they settled would have been claimed as a sacred site."

"And they're believed to be charged with energy, similar to electromagnetic energy." Daniel picked up the explanation. They're usually laid out in a straight line and where they intersect, energy vortexes form. So if the Ancients were studying ascension here" he placed his finger in the center of the circle "and the Anasazi…" He looked at Kiyah.

"They maybe camped there, or had settlements in the area. Each of these points is seven miles from the central point and each point is fourteen miles from the next if you hike them in a circle. The Anasazi marked each of these points with a pictograph panel and this symbol" Kiyah pulled Daniel's note from the pile on the table "is common to all of them. The central point sits in alignment with a ley line that runs through the Utah desert and terminates in Sedona. Some people believe that there's an increase in paranormal activity at these points."

"Primitive tribes would see ascension as a god-like ability. Rodney, is it possible that the Ancients' research into ascension left behind residual energy, these energy vortexes, and that's what you picked up on the scanner?" Jennifer's face shifted between concerned and curious.

"Its possible, but the energy signatures would have been enormous, initially, to leave behind the one I read on the scanner. We're nowhere near the area where they found the panels. And that doesn't explain the second reading I picked up down the hallway." He glared at Kiyah as if he expected her to provide all the answers to unanswerable questions.

She shrugged again and turned away from the group. Kiyah busied herself at the counter, pulled small glasses from a cabinet, ice from the freezer and a glass bottle from under the counter. Ice cubes clinked a merry jingle as they dropped into glasses; a curious counterpoint to the tension in the room. Kiyah uncapped the bottle and poured a generous measure of amber liquid over the cubes. She handed the glasses to the group gathered in her dining room. Rodney sniffed the glass suspiciously. His eyes widened as he recognized the fragrance of good Scotch. "_Carson would have kittens, her serving it over ice,"_ he thought as he took a quick sip.

"I think we are all going to need something a little stronger than coffee." Kiyah swallowed a healthy slug of her own drink. "Especially now…since I think I know where the other energy readings came from."

Kiyah deposited her drink on the counter and turned back to the table. She retrieved the battered cardboard box from the chair and opened it. "I got this in the mail this past week. It's why I wanted to talk to you." She studied Daniel carefully, looking deep into his eyes.

"What is it?" Rodney couldn't keep the impatience from his voice.

Kiyah glanced at him and pulled a small leather-wrapped package from the box. She laid it carefully on the table and slowly unfolded the leather. A bright silver chain with a silver and crystal pendant sat on a twisted bundle of sweet-scented grass. Kiyah picked up the pendant. Three interlocked silver circles about two inches in diameter supported a sliver of pale blue crystal. She shrugged and slipped the chain over her head. A single brown feather and a small wooden cylinder lay next to the bundle of grass. Kiyah carefully moved them to the side and picked up the last item in the package. She untied the string that secured the neck of a leather pouch slightly larger than a man's hand.

"I think this is what is giving off the energy reading you picked up on your scanner." She turned to Daniel. "Do you remember Ben Lightning Horse?"

"Yes, he's that Navajo shaman who was involved in the Elders Project a few years ago. What's he got to do with anything?"

"I met Ben five years ago, when I was doing translations for the Elders Project. He told me some great stories and he conducted a healing ceremony for me after…" Kiyah's voice faded. She cleared her throat, gave herself a visible mental shake. "That's not important. Anyway he conducted a healing ceremony and we kept in touch after. He died about two years ago and I never expected to hear from his family again. Then this came in the mail three days ago."

Kiyah pulled a large cylindrical crystal from the leather pouch. About eight inches in length, the smooth planes of the pale blue crystal reflected the light in the room. As they watched, the crystal glowed, a soft sky blue deepened to cobalt then flared to a bright silvery blue.

Rodney whipped the scanner off the table, his eyes wide as he read the energy signature. He stared, stunned. "_Just where in the hell did a Navajo voodoo shaman get a stargate control crystal?"_ The energy signature pulsed and he glanced at the scanner again. He looked at the scanner, at Kiyah, at the crystal. Control crystals didn't glow like that, at least not when someone was holding them. Not even Sheppard got a response like that from a crystal.

"Umm…is it supposed to do that?" Jennifer's question cut the tension in the room and refocused Rodney's attention on the silver box sitting on the table. It too was glowing, bright silver and it was humming; a soft melodious sound that grew in power and pitch. Pleasant and soothing, the tone had an almost hypnotic quality to it. The box flared, brilliant silvery light dazzled their eyes and they turned away from its radiance. The humming tone silenced abruptly, replaced by a soft 'click' as the box unlocked and opened. The silvery blue light in the crystal softened until it returned to its original pale sky color.

"How in the hell did you do that?" Rodney demanded.

Kiyah backed up a step. "I don't know! I just picked it up and it started glowing." She looked around the room. Daniel watched her with a speculative look. Keller looked like she wanted to disappear through the floor. Rodney looked pissed.

"I don't know how I did it. It didn't do that the first time I opened it. I swear. I had no idea…Oh shit." Kiyah's eyes fell on the opened box.

Daniel looked at the box and its contents. A small ink black stone tablet nestled against a bed of finely woven silver blue cloth. A slender silver headband, wrought in a pattern of intertwined leaves and vines curled protective arms around the stone. Tiny blue crystals, miniature duplicates of the one in Kiyah's hand studded the intersections of the leaves and vines. The headband was striking; the Ancient crafter had been a master in his art and the small group gathered in Kiyah's apartment admired the sheer beauty of the artifact in the box.

Rodney scanned the headband, confirmed the energy emanating from it. "That's definitely what's giving off the energy signature. It's amazing. I've never seen anything like it before."

Jennifer glanced at the screen. "Those almost look like brain wave patterns, but the signature is just slightly off." She studied the screen intently. "I wonder…If an Ancient wore this during ascension those energy readings could represent the last vestiges of the conscious mind at the moment of ascension."

"I don't care. You need to get it out of here. Now." Kiyah glanced at the crystal and stuffed it back in the leather pouch. "Here, take it." She shoved the package in Daniel's hands. "I can't do this." Kiyah fled the suffocating room for the sanctuary of the narrow third floor balcony. She heaved great lungfuls of air; her hands, white-knuckled, gripped the railing as if it were a lifeline anchored in time and space.

Daniel laid the crystal on the table and stepped out with her. "Kiyah, what's wrong?" his hand was a firm gentle reassurance on her shoulder.

"You didn't feel that?" her green eyes darted from the night sky to his face and back.

"Feel what?"

"That thing…energy…whatever. Don't tell me you didn't feel that."

"I'm sorry; I didn't. What did you feel?"

"Power. Unlimited, infinite power. It's like I could feel everything and nothing all at once. I don't know how to explain it, but that thing's dangerous. It…it…scares me." She inhaled deeply, held her breath, exhaled slowly as she gathered the shreds of her composure around her.

Daniel smiled, his eyes kind. "Ok. If it makes you feel better, I'll take it back to the SGC with me."

She nodded and allowed him to lead her back into the apartment. She watched McKay as he poked at the crystal, scanned it and frowned. "Nothing. It was there and now it's just gone. You…" he snapped his fingers at Kiyah, "coffee girl. Go touch that."

Kiyah gawked at him. "Hell no! I want nothing to do with that damned thing."

"God you sound like Carson. Just touch it. I need a scan of it and I need it activated. It responded to you last time." Rodney gestured Kiyah closer to the crystal with impatient little waves of his hand. She glared at him and muttered under her breath. Jennifer smothered a grin as Kiyah questioned McKay's sanity, parentage and competency. With a vocabulary like that, Kiyah would fit in nicely with Sheppard's marines.

Kiyah gave McKay a final glare and brushed tentative fingertips across the crystal. It glowed the same pale sky blue. She snatched her hand away, scrubbed her fingers on her jeans as if burned. "Ok I touched it. It lit up. You happy now?"

He stretched his own hand out and touched the smooth polished planes of the crystal face. It sat quietly, dully on the table. He frowned again. "Apparently it only responds to the natural gene, or…"

"Or it imprinted on Kiyah."

"Imprinted? What do you mean? Imprinted?"

"Some Ancient technology imprints on the person who initialized it. That person is then the only one who can use that piece of tech. If that's the case here, you are the only one who can activate that crystal." Dr. Keller explained.

"Oh double shit." Kiyah's whisper sounded forced from a suddenly dry throat. "That can't be a good thing." She retrieved her drink from the counter and downed the Scotch with a single gulp.

"Think of it as a failsafe. If it is dangerous, only you can initiate it. Unless you have delusions of grandeur and plan on taking a significant role in world domination, I don't think you have anything to worry about." Daniel gave Kiyah's shoulder a supportive squeeze.

"Ok, fine." Kiyah's expression said it was anything but fine. "We solved the mystery of how to open the box. But that just leads to more questions. What the hell does that thing do? Why does it glow for me and nobody else?" She pointed at the headband, "And we still have another problem; where is your missing friend?"

"She's right. We need to find Carson. He might be able to shed some insight about this thing anyway. If he can activate the crystal, then we'll know for sure that it's not imprinted to Kiyah."

"And if it is? Imprinted to me, I mean?"

"Then we're gonna need your help with the research. But that's for another day." Rodney reluctantly turned away from the crystal and the headband. Another pot of coffee and a laptop and he'd study that headband the rest of the weekend. Kiyah wrapped the crystal back in the leather and shoved the bundle back in the beat up cardboard box. She glared at the box as if she could return it to the sender by sheer willpower.

"Come on. Let's go look for your friend." Kiyah pulled on a well-loved black leather jacket and grabbed a set of keys off the counter. "We might as well leave all that", she waved at the items on the table, "for tomorrow."

۞۞۞


	8. A Night With the Jersey Devil

A/N: Warning! Serious whumpage ahead. This chapter is rated 18+ for mature themes and descriptions of torture.

Thanks, everyone, for the lovely reviews. It makes my day to see those e-mail alerts in my inbox.

**Chapter 8**

**A Night with the Jersey Devil**

Carson woke to a raging thirst, a roaring headache and a throbbing ache deep in his bones. He tried and failed to remember a time he didn't hurt as much as he did now. Hell, even Michael hadn't hurt him this much, physically anyway. He curled his hand around the water bottle he didn't remember holding when he fell asleep. The few swallows left did little to quench the desert in his throat. He looked around, hopeful. Maybe his captors restocked his water. The room was barren; even the tray that held the meager supplies he'd been given was gone.

He shivered; his chill had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. He felt that creepy crawly prickly sensation and knew the watcher was back. It was a childish gesture and more in tune with Colonel Sheppard's character than his own, but Carson waved a single finger on his right hand at the window. That brief gesture of defiance gave him small comfort, but he'd take anything he could get at this point.

Thirst tormented him. He ignored it until the torment became an ache and the scant moisture in his mouth dried to fur-coat-over-the-tongue consistency. He pushed himself to his feet until he achieved a more or less vertical position and slithered along the wall to the sink. The water quality hadn't improved during his nap. He let the tap run a bit; the water looked a little clearer, a little less like blood. He filled the bottle and drank deeply. The water tasted stale and metallic, a testament to the time it spent in corroded pipes. He refilled the bottle and slid down the wall until he was once again on the floor. He set the bottle next to him and wrapped his arms around his knees, pulled them against his chest and waited.

He didn't know what he was waiting for. He considered what he did know. Beaten, possibly drugged, if the foggy lethargy and quadruple vision were any indication, he tried to reason out why he'd been taken in the first place. So far, his captors hadn't made a single demand. It made no sense and thinking on it, seeking rationale in an irrational situation just made his head pound and his stomach swim. He sighed, closed his eyes and waited. Waited for the nausea to pass and the ache to dull. Waited for his captors to return. Waited for rescue. Carson was good at waiting; he'd had plenty of practice as Michael's prisoner.

This didn't seem much different, except he knew Rodney and Jennifer would be looking for him. He just hoped he hadn't been moved too far from Colorado Springs. He had no concept of time. He didn't know how long he'd been unconscious the first time, or the second, or the third, for that matter. They'd taken his watch; he had no way to mark time. For all he knew, he'd only been here a few minutes, maybe a few hours. It could be days and he wouldn't know. Landry, the IOA, Stargate Command would be pissed if he didn't make it back to the SGC on time. If given the choice, he'd much rather face an angry IOA board than sit in this sterile boring room waiting for something, anything to happen.

The door clicked, a quiet 'snick' in the silence of the room. In the absence of sound it was as loud as a gunshot. Carson staggered to his feet, eyes wide with fear. He pressed himself against the wall, a dark smear on the dingy white as two beefy men stalked him. The fight was token resistance; he had neither the strength nor coordination to make a determined break for freedom, but he wasn't willing to sit compliantly in that damned chair either. One man twisted his arm painfully behind his back and force marched him across the floor to the chair. He spun, staggered and collapsed in the chair's metal embrace when the second man shoved him. Flex ties bound his wrists securely to the arms and once again, Carson found himself swallowing panic seasoned with fear.

He twisted his wrists; fought the bonds that held him securely. He inhaled deep shuddery breaths as he willed his heart to calm and he searched for those places of peace deep in his mind. He heard the snap of hard soled shoes on the tile as a third person approached. The heady scent of flowers and musk and something indefinable assaulted his nose in a sickly olfactory overload. A woman, then, wearing expensive perfume, his brain supplied helpfully. She laid a heavy hand on his shoulder; her fingers curled like talons into his flesh. He trembled under her touch; it held promise of pain and suffering and it chilled him deeper than the bucket of icy water ever could have done.

"Dr. Beckett." Her voice was cold steel on a wintry day as she leaned into his personal space and whispered against his ear. "We have much to discuss, you and I. You have secrets, many secrets, secrets I wish to know. Secrets I'll be paid very handsomely for...retrieving."

"I…I…don' know what ye're talking about." He swallowed against the knots that constricted his throat. "I don' know anything."

She leaned closer, her breath a warm tickle against his ear as her fingers tightened painfully in his shoulder. "Oh but I think you do know…many things. Things of great interest to the right people."

"Ye're wrong. I don' know anything. I'm just a medical doctor. I don' have secrets. At least not the kind ye think I have."

"You underestimate your value, Doctor." She straightened and the pressure on his shoulder was replaced by sharp claws that raked through his hair. He shuddered at her touch as much as her words. Michael said those very words to him so long ago. Nausea churned in his gut; if she kept touching him, he was going to vomit, hopefully on her.

"I…I…don'…" His voice trailed off as she stepped in front on him and ran a sharp-nailed finger down his face. Lydia Harper pressed her French manicured finger against his lips, silencing him. She grasped his chin tightly forcing his head up to meet her eyes. Her nails bit into his skin, little half moon dents on either side of his face. His eyes widened in recognition.

"Yes, you know many things, but we'll start with something easy. Tell me Dr. Beckett, for a man who's been dead for two years, how you manage to look so…lively and well preserved?"

Lydia removed her hand from his face and watched his eyes. He blinked, shock and fear written large over his features. He swallowed again and his eyes shifted from hers as he fumbled for an answer.

"It was an accident. The Air Force made a mistake. The man that was killed wasnae me; it was someone else. They misidentified the body. I…I spent two years as a prisoner. I only recently escaped…" his voice faded as she shook her head and pressed her finger against his lips.

"You're lying, Doctor."

He shook his head. "I'm not."

Lydia smiled, stepped back and nodded. Carson never saw the sledgehammer blow that knocked him sideways. Lydia's henchman had a fist harder than titanium and he put his full bodyweight, all 230 lbs of it, into the blow.

Stars exploded behind his eyes. White hot and brilliant, they flowed, blossomed, grew and died. He gasped, shallow panting through his mouth. Something warm and wet tickled the side of his head where it trailed down his face. He blinked tears of pain from his eyes and they mingled with the blood winding a crooked trail over his cheek.

Lydia's hand curled in his hair, pulling his head up to face her once again. "Now Dr. Beckett, listen very carefully. I know when you are lying. I don't like lying. It wastes my time and I don't like people who waste my time. Understood?"

"Aye" he gasped, his voice barely audible as he ground out the word through teeth clenched against the pain.

"Good. Now, tell me, how is it you look so healthy for a man who has been dead for two years."

"I…I…can't. I won'. I won' tell ye. Ye can beat me all ye want, but I won' tell."

Lydia stroked her fingers through his hair. He cringed as she caressed him. "I was so hoping you would be willing to do this the easy way. So be it. I gave you a chance. You've rejected it. You leave me with no other choice." She tightened her grip on his hair, released him and nodded.

The henchmen stepped up to the chair as she stepped back. Carson shrank against the chair, braced for a blow that never came. The henchmen cut the flex ties from his wrists, yanked him from the chair and stripped him of his jacket and sweater. They shoved him back in the chair and bound his wrists once again with the flex ties. He twisted, his eyes wide when they approached him, rubber tubing in hand.

"No, don' please. Don' do this. No!" His plea fell on deaf ears as one man stepped behind him and grabbed him in a headlock, meaty arm across his throat; heavy hand gripped in his hair. The other tied the tubing tightly around his bicep. Carson struggled until the arm around his throat choked him and black spots danced in front of his eyes.

Lydia held a small glass vial in her hand. Carson watched, hypnotized and horrified and powerless to escape. "You can stop this, you know. Just tell me what I want to know and we can dispense with all of this." Lydia gestured expansively with the syringe. "It's your call, Doctor."

"I can't" he whispered.

"Then you leave me no choice." She nodded at the henchmen. They tightened their grip on him, pinning him immobile against the chair. Lydia slipped the needle easily in the vein in the crook of his arm. Liquid fire burned up his arm as the pale amber-colored drug entered his vein. His face twisted with pain as he fought the onslaught.

"What ha'e ye done to me? God please, what did ye give me?" He panted as the fire spread.

"It's my own special cocktail. I use a mix of drugs. This one contains an extract from a plant similar to stinging nettle, my own personal touch, that's the burning sensation, though it will dissipate in a few hours. Until then, the effects can be quite…unpleasant. It also contains a blend of sodium pentothal, scopolamine and just a touch of lysergic acid. I find the results to be quite…intriguing, although I doubt many of my test subjects would see it that way. You, as a doctor, have a unique knowledge of these drugs, so I think I'll skip the boring what-to-expect lecture. Anyway, it will be much more interesting just to watch you as the serum takes effect."

Lydia smiled at Carson, and stroked her hand through his hair once again. She tightened her grip, jerked his head back, and forced him to meet her eyes. "You really should have told me what I wanted to know. I don't know how many treatments your body can stand, Doctor."

Lydia released him, wiped her hands on a towel as if cleaning something foul from them. She nodded at her henchmen. "Clear the room. Give him ten minutes and cut him free."

Carson listened to the snap-click of her shoes as she strode from the room. The fire in his arm matured, burned across his shoulders and chest. It ate away his self control, consumed his willpower. It bled through his veins, spilled into his flesh and settled in his bones. It left him an empty vessel, ripe for the fear that followed his loss of discipline. The fear filled him, dragged him to the depths of agony he'd never experienced. Not even Michael had hurt him so badly and oh God, he hurt, more than he ever thought possible. He rode the waves of pain as they burned through him; squeezed his eyes tight against the fire. The light burned him, blended with the drug in his veins, and consumed him with its hot breath until there was nothing but the pain.

He didn't feel the henchmen cut him free of the chair; didn't notice them toss him to the floor like a pile of discarded rags. Carson's world was hot white pain searing him from the inside out. He rolled on the floor, curled in on himself and shook with it. None of it made sense. "_How could Lydia have known he lied?"_ It wasn't the best tale, but it was the one the SGC had agreed upon and he'd learned enough of it to tell it convincingly. So he thought. He writhed and panted, riding out the pain the only way he could. He refused to scream, bit back the cries in his throat until he tasted blood. He would deny her that satisfaction, the sound of his pain echoing through the room. He fought to hold onto his sanity, his identity. He fought for himself, his friends. He fought for something, anything to believe in, to anchor him against the unrelenting onslaught. "_Rodney, hurry. Please God, hurry. I don't think I have much time." _ He prayed silently, curled on his side, tears leaking from his tightly clenched eyes.

۞۞۞


	9. Open All Night

A/N: Containers spoilers for Kindred II.

Thanks again, everyone for reading and reviewing. I really appreciate it.

**Chapter 9**

**Open All Night**

Kiyah stomped up the steps to her apartment; her brain felt like it was leaking from her ears with every step. She'd spent the last three hours in a fruitless frustrating search for the missing Dr. Carson Beckett and found nothing but a pounding headache. Rodney and Jennifer had insisted on going with her and what had seemed like a good idea at the time soon degenerated into the mother of all What-Was- I-Thinking moments.

Jennifer was ok. She'd been genuinely helpful and her gentle approach to asking questions had opened doors and enlisted additional searchers. It was a sharp contrast to Rodney McKay's approach. He approached the fine art of interrogation with all the finesse of a bulldozer. Sarcastic, acerbic and loud, he'd managed to alienate more help than he'd enlisted. It was the running litany of inadequacies concerning the collective intelligence of the local population that was the final straw.

"All I'm saying is that they overreacted. Who knew the Beverly Hillbillies lived in Colorado Springs."

"Yes and calling them the 'genetic equivalent of unevolved backwoods amebas sharing a single alcohol-soaked brain cell' was certainly a wonderful tactic for enlisting their help in finding your friend."

"Well if they had just listened..."his mouth snapped shut as Kiyah turned to face him.

"They were listening...to her." Kiyah pointed at Jennifer. "I'm surprised all they did was kick us out. And thank you so much for the life time ban from the Cat's Eye. It's gonna cost me two month's pay in drinks just to get Marcus to speak to me again."

"Well they threatened us...me."

"Yeah, go figure. You're just lucky they were more interested in tequila shots than ass kicking." Kiyah turned her back on the man as she unlocked her apartment door. Daniel had long since abandoned them for his own apartment. Kiyah envied him the solitude and the quiet.

"Look. It's been a long night. We should all get some rest. We can meet up again after a little sleep and start looking for Carson again."

"Do you really think we can find him?" Jennifer's eyes betrayed her worry.

"I don't know. You know him; I don't. Has he done this before?"

"No, he's usually very responsible. But he has been under a lot of stress lately, so maybe..."

"Maybe he just needed a break."

"And maybe the sun will rise in the west. I'm telling you; he's in trouble." Rodney pushed past Kiyah into the apartment. "Besides, he has no reason to avoid us. We're his friends."

Kiyah raised an eyebrow. "Uh huh. Sure."

"We are." He folded his arms across his chest, his face defensive and defiant.

"Ok. If you say so." Kiyah held up a hand as he opened his mouth to protest. "It's late. We're all tired and some of us are not thinking straight. I have a guest room if you want to stay here for the night or I can give you a ride back to your hotel. Your choice."

Rodney made a bee line for the table where the Ancient artifacts and the blue crystal rested. "Stay. I might as well get a head start on this. Maybe we can figure out if it has anything to do with Carson's disappearance."

"Not very much, I think. He disappeared before I showed you that and other than you two and Dr. Jackson; nobody else knows I have it." Kiyah shrugged out of her leather jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair.

'Yes, he disappears and you just happen to have an Ancient artifact and a stargate control crystal show up on your doorstep. All very convenient. A little too convenient, hmmm."

"And you'd be implying what, exactly, Dr. McKay? That I had something to do with Carson's disappearance?" Fist on hip, Kiyah glared at McKay. "I've never seen any of you before today. You left Caffiends. I didn't. I stayed there, working until after the concert. How do you know Carson didn't take off just to get away from you?" Kiyah's temper sharpened her tongue and she wielded it like a sword, her voice soft and dangerous.

"He wouldn't....I mean we're friends...he wouldn't just...leave..." Rodney turned toward Jennifer. "He wouldn't, right?"

"No Rodney, he wouldn't. But I don't think Kiyah has anything to do with his disappearance either. Its like you said; it's too convenient." She laid a gentle hand on his arm, an anchor against his worry.

"Look, I'm sorry I snapped at you. It's been a very long day and I can't speak for you, but I'm beat. I'll fix up the guest room; you can crash here tonight. We get some sleep, call Daniel and start looking for Carson again in the morning."

"Fine. But I don't want sleep; I want to take another look at that thing." Rodney waved at the artifacts on the table. "And if you have a computer that would be helpful." He turned to the table, shuffled through Daniel's notes and sorted them in little piles. Kiyah shrugged and looked at Jennifer. Keller shrugged in return. Kiyah handed Rodney her laptop without a word.

Kiyah marched down the hallway and fixed the guest room with fresh linens and towels. _"How in the hell did I end up with the world's rudest houseguest?"_ Kiyah shook her head as she replayed the evening's events in her mind. Any other time she'd consider tonight's events a success. They had, after all, finally gotten that damned box opened, but Kiyah felt a little like Pandora. She couldn't shake the feeling that they had set something sinister in motion and now that it was out, putting it back in the box would prove nearly impossible. _"And why did Ben's family send me, of all people, that freakin' crystal?"_

"Need a hand?"

"Jesus! Give a girl a heart attack, why don't you?" Kiyah jumped when Jennifer appeared in the doorway. She regarded the other woman with a level gaze.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I just wanted to thank you. You know, for helping us look for Carson and this." Jennifer waved at the guest room.

"It's okay. I don't get a lot of overnight guests, so..." Kiyah trailed off, not sure why she felt a need to explain herself to the doctor. "Hey, I gotta ask...Dr. McKay...is he always like this?"

"Rodney? Like what?"

"Tense, excitable, perpetually pissed off at everybody. Is he always like that?"

Jennifer smiled, her affection for the physicist genuine in her eyes. "No, he's just really worried about Carson." She paused, wondered just how much of Carson and Rodney's history she should share with Kiyah. "Carson's just been through a lot lately and with him disappearing like this; well, Rodney doesn't handle things like this well. He tries to hide it, but he really cares."

Kiyah nodded. "We'll find him. There are a couple of friends I can talk to later. They'll help us, but it won't be for a while. Until then, we can try driving around looking for him...but..."

"But we aren't likely to find him."

"No." Kiyah looked at the pillow she was slowly strangling and loosened her grip. "I'm afraid Rodney's right about one thing. If he doesn't know this area and he doesn't have many friends around here, then he very well could have found trouble." She swallowed hard and studied Jennifer. Kiyah looked into Jennifer's eyes as if searching for something.

"There's something I should tell you. I didn't say anything before, because I have no proof. I still don't." Kiyah pulled at her lower lip with her teeth as she considered her words and their effect on Jennifer. "I think something might have happened this afternoon; something that might help explain what's going on."

Kiyah squeezed the pillow to her chest; her arms clutched it like a shield. She sighed heavily and chewed at her lip again before she continued. "You met Lydia this afternoon, right? What do you think of her?"

"She seemed cold, and at the concert she was almost hostile. She doesn't like other people very much. She seems like someone who uses other people to get what she wants." Jennifer frowned as she considered their brief encounters with the coffee shop owner.

"Yeah. She hates everybody but herself. And she's sneaky, always lurking in shadows and watching people. She thinks we don't notice, but we do. Me and Jill and Tim. We all notice. And she's been even weirder then usual the past few weeks. I think she's been following me...and Daniel. And I think it has something to do with that box we found in the desert."

"But what does that have to do with Carson or any of us?"

"That's just it; it shouldn't. But you came in with Dr. Jackson. And stupid me, I pointed you out to her this afternoon when she was asking me about fixing that miserable espresso machine. I didn't think; I just...I just waved over at you guys and I didn't think anything of it since Daniel's been in the shop before and all and I...I...didn't..." Kiyah's words tumbled from her lips in a cascade, spilling faster than she could pronounce them.

"Kiyah, calm down. Why do you think Lydia has something to do with all this?" Jennifer laid a gentle hand on Kiyah's arm and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

Kiyah pulled at her lip again, looked down at the pillow as if she expected it to pick up the narration. "She took pictures. Of you. And Rodney. And Carson. Look, I don't know how you know Dr. Jackson, but I know about the Stargate program. I worked for it for a while, a few years back. I was even on an SGC team for a while. But there was an...incident...and I left the program. I signed the non-disclosure agreement and settled here in Colorado Springs. Everything's been cool for a while; at least it was until I found that damned pictograph in the canyon. Since then, things have just been...I don't know...off somehow."

She paused again, searched Jennifer's face for disbelief and found trust. Jennifer nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"The guy that owned Caffiends left Colorado Springs about five months ago, shortly after Daniel and I started working together on decoding those pictographs. Jerry was awesome, a really great guy. He just disappeared. He was there on Monday and gone on Tuesday and Wednesday we got Lydia. It was all very strange; how she just showed up and took over. She had some document, said the place was hers. But in all the time we knew Jerry, he never mentioned having any family, anybody that he'd turn the place over to. And the way he just disappeared."

Kiyah shrugged and hugged the pillow tighter. "He wouldn't have just left; he would have said goodbye, unless he couldn't." Her voice cracked and she choked on the last word as she searched Jennifer's eyes.

"You think Lydia had something to do with his disappearance?"

"Yeah. But I can't prove it. Just like I can't prove she took pictures of you this afternoon. But why? Why would she take pictures of you? It doesn't make sense, unless she's up to something."

"But what?"

"Yeah, that would be the question of the day."

Jennifer and Kiyah sat quietly on the bed, each of them lost in thought over what Kiyah said. Jennifer feared for Carson. "_If he had somehow captured Lydia's attention, why? What could Lydia possibly want with the man?"_ She was sure they hadn't talked about the SGC, Atlantis or anything else sensitive while they were in the coffee shop.

"Kiyah, have you said anything to Daniel about this?"

"Yeah, but he thinks I'm being paranoid. I don't know. Maybe I am. Maybe it's nothing."

"And maybe it's the key we need to find Carson. Look, it's late and you look about dead on your feet. Get some rest and we'll talk about this later. I'll talk to Rodney; he might have some ideas and maybe between the three of us we can shed some light on the whole thing." Jennifer switched to doctor-with-a-patient mode as she steered Kiyah to her own room.

Jennifer shut the door and stretched out on the bed in the darkened room. Kiyah had shared something important; Jennifer knew it. Kiyah's information was more than unsettling; it was downright frightening and Jennifer was more concerned than ever for Carson. She didn't want to think about what it would mean to have found him, healed him and then lose him all over again.

She'd seen the pain in Rodney's eyes; seen how he'd walled himself away from everyone for weeks at a time. Carson's death had torn him to the core. She thought about his words in the infirmary as Carson, this Carson, confronted the reality of his existence. "_As far as I'm concerned, one of the best friends I ever had just came back from the dead."_ She remembered the look in Rodney's eyes when he activated the stasis pod, remembered how hard he'd worked with her staff of 'rattle shaking tea leaf readers' as they searched for a cure to Carson's condition. He'd stopped insulting her staff at some point; hell, he'd even elevated them to the status of his own hard sciences staff of incompetent imbeciles.

Jennifer sighed as she curled on her side, her arms wrapped around the pillow abandoned by Kiyah. She didn't want to think about losing Carson, about what it would do to Rodney; about what it would do to them all. "Be safe Carson. Where ever you are, remember, we're coming for you. Don't give up. Be safe." She whispered to the darkness. She closed her eyes and let the silent tears run.

۞۞۞

Rodney glared at the artifacts on Kiyah's table. He'd tried everything he could think of to activate the crystal. It sat stubbornly dull; its illuminating brilliance concealed within its depths. He'd asked, well demanded really, if he was honest about it, for Kiyah to activate it. The coffee barista explained in very pointed, very graphic, anatomically improbable terms exactly what he could do with the crystal, the headband, Daniel's notes, the box, the laptop and his head. Rodney didn't know a lot about anatomy, but he figured even if her suggestion was possible, it was unlikely that everything would fit in that particular orifice.

He gave up on the crystal. It was useless unless activated and Kiyah had made it abundantly clear that cooperation was not on the agenda at 3:30 AM. He turned his attention to the black stone tablet in the silver box. Smooth, polished, inky black, it resembled obsidian, but denser, heavier. It was unlike anything Rodney had encountered before. He turned it over in his hand. It fit perfectly in his palm, almost as if it belonged there. He ran his fingers lightly over the surface; the tips of his fingers picked up the tiny characters, almost too small for the naked eye to see, etched into the surface of the stone.

He ran the scanner over the stone, felt it warm in his hand in response to the scanner. The microscopic print remained indecipherable. Dammit, he needed a magnifying glass. He glanced down the hall, thought about asking Kiyah for one, thought better of it. He didn't think she was capable of carrying out her earlier threat, but he didn't want to find out for certain. If she'd been pissed at 3:30, it's not likely that she'd be less pissed if he woke her at 4:30.

Rodney rummaged around the kitchen as he channeled his inner MacGyver. He found a pair of heavy bottomed square glass casserole dishes and the stone fit perfectly in them. He filled the dish with water and sat the second dish on top of the stone. The microscopic characters were larger; he could make out most of them. He ran the scanner over the stone again, smiled when he captured images he recognized. The text was Ancient and he was able to make out some of the words. Other words made no sense; they were a jumble of symbols, more like hieroglyphics than letters and nothing but unpronounceable gibberish as far as he was concerned. He sighed, turned to the laptop and began transcribing what he could read.

۞۞۞


	10. Devil's Arcade

A/N: This is a short one. I'll post another in a couple of days. Thanks, everyone for reading and reviewing.

To RoryFaller: Yes, I pick on poor Carson...again.

**Chapter 10**

**Devil's Arcade**

"_Hurry Rodney, please God, hurry. I don't know how much time I have." _Carson chanted softly to himself; the mantra his anchor to reality in Lydia's drug-induced Hell. The fire burned him, a conflagration ignited along his bones, eroding him from the inside until he melted, lost substance, became one with the liquid fire. He drowned in it; a river of flames scoured and purified and cleansed him, stripped him bare of everything he'd ever believed, every truth he'd ever known. He was nothing, a hollow shell; the empty casing of a man once vibrant, now stuffed with the ashes left behind by the inferno.

The burning eased, settled into a warm flush across taut sensitive skin. His eyes hurt, the light, already too bright, was excruciating and he pressed his hands over his eyes, an inadequate mask to black out the light. He was thirsty; his mouth and throat desiccated from the drugs. Lydia was right about one thing; as a doctor, he knew what to expect from her little chemical cocktail. The doctor ticked off the symptoms of overdose: light sensitivity, dry mouth, fever, tachycardia. All present and accounted for. His heart raced, bounced in his chest as if searching for an escape from its bony cage. _"Water, the doctor reminded him. Ye need to stay hydrated; stay as strong as possible. Give Rodney time to find ye." _

Carson squinted through the brilliance that assaulted his sensitive eyes. The sink on the opposite side of the room beckoned. He blinked; _"did that bloody thing just wave at me?"_ He scrubbed a shaky hand over his face as he wiped away the image. He stared at the sink again. White porcelain, stainless steel tap, it perched precariously atop a slender pedestal. _"Nothing animate about it; I must be seein' things. Bloody woman and her bloody drugs."_ Carson cursed Lydia under his breath as he struggled to his feet.

A half dozen mis-starts and he finally stood, splay-legged and wobbly as a newborn colt. He shuffle-lurched his way across the floor and ignored the way it folded and buckled under his feet. The walls wavered; he stayed away from them. He knew them to be traps, lying in wait. He knew if he ventured too close, they'd wrap him in suffocating whiteness. The white was wrong. The absence of color drained him. He closed his eyes and watched, horrified as the greens, and blues and purples slid below his lids, sucked away into the white. He sobbed, grieved for the lost colors stolen by the nothingness.

The walls lunged at him, fingerless grabby hands stretched for him. He screamed, thrashed at them. They retreated, leaving him gasping for air in a stifling room. _"So hot, too hot. God why is it so hot?"_ He ran a hand over his face. Fevered skin seared his fingertips and he rubbed them over his jeans. He studied the ends of his fingers, curious. The burning intensified and he screamed again as blue-green Wraith claws burst from under his nails. _"Nonononono not real. Not real."_ He panted, swallowed against the deluge of terror flooding over him.

Hard bony fingers clutched his shoulder. He yelled, spun, backpedaled on shaky legs; there was no one there. Carson cringed, his back pressed painfully against the unyielding surface of the sink. He turned the tap, relieved when water gushed from the pipe. He cupped his hands under the cool flow, filled them, and allowed the water to flow over them as if he could wash away the nightmare. He drank from his hands, the water pure bliss against his rough throat. Cool and soothing, the water ran down his chin and his arms as he tilted his head back.

Carson choked, revulsion swept over him in a tsunami of disgust. He spat blood from his mouth. Cloying and metallic, it coated his tongue and his teeth and his throat. He swiped a hand over his mouth. Blood coated his hands; he felt it thick on his face. He backed from the sink. Blood surged from the spigot; viscous and oppressive, the coppery tang of it filled the air as he stared.

"You did this. You killed us. That's our blood you see. That's my blood you drank." A woman dressed in white oozed from the wall. Her eyes sparkled with condemnation as she judged him. "You killed us all. How does it feel, Doctor? You were supposed to help us; save us. Instead you brought nothing but death and suffering. And now it is our turn. Welcome to my world, Carson; welcome to my Hell."

"Perna? No. I...I...didnae...no...not real...not real...not real."

Perna laughed. "Isn't it? Look around, what do you see?"

Carson looked. He saw failure after failure standing in mute testimony to his shortfalls; to all the times he stumbled, all the times he fell. All the ones he couldn't save; they stood in the room pressed against him, crowded him. Heavy, oppressive, they weighed against his soul, stripped him of his identity. They bared his soul in a naked vulnerability, left him defenseless. Carson felt himself break; felt little pieces tear away from his being. He felt his molecules dissolve and float weightless in time. Time stretched and folded and pulled him apart. He hunched on his knees, his hands over his head, as he folded in on himself. He couldn't meet their eyes; couldn't bear to see the damnation of his failure in their eyes. He pressed his hands against his ears as he shut out his screams and their laughter.

"How does it feel Dr. Beckett? How does it feel?" Michael hissed in his ear. "Now you know. Now you see. Now you know how I felt." Michael's laughter reverberated through the room, drowning out the other voices. "You've earned this, you know. Tampering with my DNA, rewriting my consciousness, stripping away the essence of what I was; who I am."

Michael crouched beside the huddled wreck on the floor. "You judged us. Found us wanting because we are Wraith. What gave you that right? How does it feel to be judged, Dr. Beckett?" Michael's voice sliced at Carson like razors and shredded his shattered soul.

"I jus' wanted ta help. I jus'...wanted ta find...a way...a way...for us ta live...live together. It wasnae supposed ta turn out like this. I dinna wan' it like this...I jus' wanted things ta be better."

"Better for whom, Doctor? You? Humans? Certainly not for me and my brothers. Tell me, Doctor, what is it that makes humans better than Wraith? Tell me, who are you, to decide?"

"I...I...I'm sorry...please...no more...please." Carson whispered in a ragged voice. He pulled his hands tighter over his ears. The watchers closed ranks, pressed against him. They pulled at him, picked apart his psyche and Perna laughed and the Hoffans laughed and the others laughed and Michael crouched beside him and laughed loudest of all.

۞۞۞


	11. Reason to Believe

**Chapter 11**

**Reason to Believe**

Rodney woke to the sound of running water. He lifted a weary hand and scrubbed at the grit that glued his eyelashes shut. He looked around, momentarily confused, as he remembered where he was and the events of the previous night. He sighed, frustrated with the lack of progress in translating the stone tablet and finding Carson. "Where the hell are you Carson?" Rodney asked the silent walls as if he expected them to provide insight to the question that plagued him for the last fifteen hours.

"Did you sleep at all?" Kiyah padded quietly into the room on bare feet.

"Do you make it a habit of sneaking up on people? Or is it just me?" Rodney snapped at her, annoyance masked his temporary fright.

Kiyah cast him a baleful glance and detoured into the kitchen. Slamming doors and banging dishes communicated her own hostility toward the acerbic man in her apartment. Kiyah liked solitude, valued her privacy over any material possession she owned. She scooped coffee beans into the grinder, pulsed the machine, poured the fresh grounds into a clean filter and started a new pot of coffee brewing. She found comfort in the familiar rhythms of her life.

She stepped out on the small balcony of her third floor apartment and leaned against the railing, her eyes focused on the mist-shrouded mountains in the distance. Kiyah closed her eyes against a flood of memories. She'd tried for five years to put her past behind her. She wanted nothing more than to rewrite those painful chapters of her life, to forget the mistakes that exacted so high a price. She thought she had, until that hike in the desert and the discovery of those characters etched into the sandstone.

Kiyah swiped a hand against the heat in her eyes, pressing back the moisture that threatened. Her shower damp, freshly-washed hair hung limp against her back, bled water into her thin tank shirt. The shivers running down her back had nothing to do with the chilly morning air. She thought about Dr. Jackson, about how she'd approached him when she recognized certain symbols on the rock art panel in the Utah desert. His excitement reignited a passion she thought long tamped down and she cursed the damnable curiosity ingrained in her psyche.

That panel and Dr. Jackson opened the door to her former life. Just a crack, but it was enough. She didn't know how, didn't understand it; but the people he'd brought into her life last night had flung that door wide. Kiyah was drowning in a sea of doubt and fear and conflict. In less than a day, three strangers had walked into her carefully constructed little world and leveled it with all the power of a nuclear detonation. She felt a little like Humpty-Dumpty and doubted she'd ever be whole again.

She sighed, pushed her wet hair off her forehead and turned to study the stocky man in her apartment. He stood with his back to the door, unaware of the scrutiny aimed in his direction. Sharp-tongued and condescending, Rodney McKay was unlike anyone Kiyah had ever met. He wore his ill temper like a mask; yet his face was an open screen to his emotions. Kiyah wondered if he knew just how easily he could be read by observant eyes. She sighed again and turned back to the misted mountains, rubbed her hands briskly over the goose flesh on her arms. She was cold, but preferred standing on the balcony; her apartment was a little too crowded for her comfort. She hoped they found Carson soon. She didn't think she could handle much more togetherness with these people from the SGC.

۞۞۞

Jennifer shifted under the warm blanket and pulled the pillow closer to her face. She'd have to hand it to Kiyah, the guest room was quite comfortable and she slept deeply for several hours, even though she was worried about Carson. The scent of freshly brewed coffee tickled her nose and tempted her out of her snug nest. She dressed quickly, ran her hands through her hair, finger combing the knots woven in during sleep.

She found Rodney much as she had left him the night before; studying the artifacts and muttering under his breath. He looked older; the lack of sleep smudged dark shadows under his eyes and etched lines around his mouth. He frowned at the laptop, tapped keys with one hand while the other clutched a mug of coffee like a lifeline.

"Hey. You have any luck with that?" Jennifer helped herself to a cup of coffee.

"Some. Most of what I've been able to translate is a bunch of medical mumbo jumbo. This really is more up Carson's alley, or yours, but from what little I've found, the Ancients definitely used the device to study ascension. I think it has other functions too, but I haven't figured it out yet." Rodney scowled at the tablet and his notes and sucked coffee from the mug.

"Where's Kiyah?" Jennifer looked around for their reluctant hostess.

"Out there." Rodney waved in the general direction of the balcony. Jennifer followed his gesture, noticed Kiyah leaning against the balcony railing. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the other woman. Kiyah's posture radiated tension, her back rigid, her arms clenched tightly around her torso in a self-comforting hug.

"Rodney, Kiyah told me something last night. I think it might have something to do with Carson." He looked up sharply at Jennifer's comment.

"Oh really."

"Yes. She seemed upset about it last night..."

"And she didn't think enough of it to share with all of us."

"It's not like that, Rodney. She's not sure." Jennifer told him about the photographs and Lydia's suspicious behavior. "So you see its all speculation and coincidence. There's no hard evidence and that's why Kiyah didn't say anything." Jennifer wrapped the story as Kiyah stepped back into the kitchen.

Rodney turned an accusatory stare her way. "So your boss is acting 'weird'" his fingers twitched as he emphasized the word with air quotes "and you didn't think it was important enough to tell us."

Kiyah folded her arms across her chest and returned his glare. "What are you saying, Dr. McKay?" Her voice was soft and dangerous.

"Well, it is strangely convenient; everything that's happening and you seem to be in the middle of it."

"Yeah, lucky me. Look, I didn't say anything last night because I wasn't sure. Lydia's a freak; it's just the past few weeks she's been acting weirder than usual. You met her. She's not exactly what you'd call approachable and if we go charging in with wild accusations...things could get ugly."

"How?"

"I think Lydia had the former owner of Caffiends killed so she could take over." Kiyah rubbed her hands over her arms again and held Rodney's shocked expression. "Lydia is not a nice person. She's not one to let obstacles, people or conditions, get in her way."

Rodney fidgeted with the coffee mug in his hands. Kiyah's words were disturbing and his mind was in overdrive as he reconsidered what Jennifer said earlier.

"So you think Lydia is involved in Carson's disappearance."

"Maybe. Probably. She took a great deal of interest in you yesterday and she was watching you last night. She's up to something, but I have no idea what."

"Then we need to find out."

"How? Rodney, you heard what Kiyah said. We can't just go in there asking questions. If she is behind Carson's disappearance, we could make things worse for him." Jennifer voiced her own concerns.

"It wouldn't do any good anyway. She's not here."

"Not here?"

"Yeah, it's Saturday. Lydia never works on Saturdays. Her office will be empty but she keeps it locked."

"Well then that's a problem."

"Not really." Kiyah grinned. "Jerry used to lock himself out of it all the time. He finally made a spare key and gave it to me for safe keeping. Lydia never changed the locks, so." She ended with a shrug.

"So we have a way in."

"Still doesn't solve the problem, though, of finding anything. I mean, we don't even know what we are looking for, let alone where it might be hidden."

"You said she took pictures of us."

"Yeah, with her cell phone."

"Then she had to download them somewhere. If she's looking for information about us, then she's probably keeping it on a computer."

"So? How are we supposed to access it without passwords?"

Rodney folded his arms across his chest, his face a mask of smug superiority. "I have yet to meet a computer I couldn't hack."

Kiyah studied his face, searched for duplicity. She saw only confident certainty in his ability to do as he claimed. "Ok, then I guess we are going to Caffiends, but we need to be careful. I'm not supposed to be there today either, and if I just show up it could raise suspicions."

"Why? You work there."

"Right. I work there. And since Lydia showed up, no one goes near the place on their days off. If I just show up, for no good reason, it might set off Lydia's radar. And she's likely to find out. Jill and Tim aren't very good at keeping secrets."

"So how are we going to get in?"

"Through the storage room. There's a root cellar in the back of the building. I don't think Lydia knows about it or cares. Jerry used to keep his stash there. Anyway, the root cellar gets us into the storeroom and from there we can sneak down the hallway to Lydia's office." Kiyah sketched a diagram of the coffee shop for them.

"That should do it."

"Yeah, there's just one small problem."

"And that would be?"

"The stairs leading up to the storeroom are broken. Whoever is going has to climb the frame. It's only about 15-20 feet but it is a little tricky."

"Wonderful. And you've done this before?"

"Yeah. Jerry lost the keys to the doors once. He had a spare set locked in his office and I had the office key, so I got volunteered to let us in the building." Kiyah smiled, her eyes sad and distant as she recalled the past. "Anyway, I've done it once. I can do it again."

"So when do we go?" Jennifer was ready. The longer she thought about Lydia and what Kiyah told her, the greater her concern for their missing friend. Carson had been gone far too long in her opinion and the sooner they found him the better.

"Soon. But someone needs to stay here. Daniel's on his way over and I want to get this stuff out of here." Kiyah gestured at the research and artifacts scattered over the table. "If Lydia is involved with any of this, then this stuff isn't safe here. Dr. Keller, would you stay and help Daniel when he gets here?"

"Sure. And please, it's Jennifer or Jen."

"Right, Jennifer."

Kiyah turned to Rodney. "Looks like it's you and me then."

He frowned but nodded. He'd rather have someone else watching his back on this little adventure. If Lydia was as dangerous as Kiyah implied, he wondered how reliable Kiyah would be if something went wrong. And this had Murphy's handiwork all over it as far as he was concerned.

Rodney McKay didn't believe in coincidence, but life in the Pegasus Galaxy had taught him some harsh lessons about best laid plans and teams and trust. Kiyah was an unknown variable in a carefully constructed equation. Unknowns tended to be hazardous to one's health, especially if that one was the most brilliant mind in two galaxies, and therefore were to be avoided. Rodney watched the coffee barista out of the corner of his eye as he saved his work on his borrowed computer. He didn't like it, but Rodney was about to put his trust into the unknown. "Carson, you'd better appreciate this." He muttered under his breath as he shut down the laptop and shrugged into his jacket.

He glared at Kiyah, flashed Jennifer a grim smile. "Let's do this."

۞۞۞


	12. Leap of Faith

A/N: Thanks again to all of you who have been reading and reviewing. I really appreciate your comments. And to those of you who have added this story to your alerts, thank you so much and welcome to the adventure.

And now the next installment...

**Chapter 12**

**Leap of Faith**

Jennifer busied herself cleaning up coffee mugs and beer bottles from last night's brainstorming session. Her thoughts churned in agitation as she worried for Carson and now Rodney. Kiyah seemed on the level, but they didn't really know her. Would she stand up for them if something went wrong? Or would she abandon them and save herself?

"I wouldn't really blame her if she did. That Lydia is scary." Jen didn't know why she felt so intimidated by the coffee shop owner. Lydia hadn't even spoken to them, really, but her presence had left Keller with a distinct uneasy feeling. Coffee mugs rinsed and stashed in the dishwasher, Jennifer wandered into the living room. She felt like a voyeur as she stood in the middle of the room, examining the artwork. She stepped closer to a painting, studied the details in the canvas, and noticed the artist's name in the lower left hand corner.

Her eyes widened. She hadn't suspected Kiyah was an artist, and the barista hadn't mentioned it. Jennifer examined the other works in the room. With the exception of a single photograph, Kiyah's name gave credit to her work. Jennifer scrutinized the artwork, seeking clues into the woman who created it. The paintings were bold, bright and vivid, colorful and full of energy. They spoke of an unrestrained spirit and an enthusiasm for life.

The photographs were much more restrained, Jennifer realized. Mostly black and white prints, the images captured buildings long abandoned to the elements and the skeletal remains of trees ravaged by time. Monochromatic and joyless, the photos beckoned Jennifer in for a closer look. She studied the details; the subtle patterns of weathered wood and peeling paint mirrored her own melancholy thoughts as she worried about Carson. Kiyah had an eye for creating a mood in her photography. Jennifer wondered if she knew how good her artwork was, if she displayed it for public view. "I'd love to have one of these." She ran a finger along a weathered wood frame.

A sharp knock at the door pulled her out of her introspective. "Must be Daniel." She hurried to the door and yanked it open. She saw a man, _not Daniel_, her mind screamed as a heavy fist slammed against her head. She staggered, collapsed and watched stars swirl in her vision as the man stepped into the apartment and closed the door quietly behind him. She watched him sweep Daniel's notes and photos into a satchel. He added the headband, its silver box and the black stone tablet. He grabbed the leather pouch with the blue crystal and tossed them in with the rest of his pilfered goods.

The man set his bag on the cleared table and turned toward Jennifer. She knew she should do something, yell for help, call the police, maybe stand up and fight back. Yeah right. The stars dipped and swooped and she felt strong hands lift her under her shoulders and drag her down the hallway. The man pulled her into the guest room, folded her carelessly and dumped her in the closet. He pulled the door closed behind him and left the room.

Jennifer leaned in a crumpled heap against the back wall. The stars spun faster. She knew she needed help and she made a valiant effort for vertical. Her head and the stars had a different opinion and she pitched forward on her face on the floor. The stars spun faster still and she knew she needed help. Maybe later. Maybe Daniel can help. Jennifer closed her eyes and watched until the stars spun into blackness.

۞۞۞

Rodney sat in the passenger seat of the forest-green Jeep as Kiyah drove through town. His pensive mood was evident in the down-turned corners of his mouth and he wondered just how he'd been talked into a little B&E adventure with a virtual stranger. Its not that he was adverse to breaking and entering; God knows, he'd done enough of it in the last five years to put even the most hardened career burglar to shame. But he'd always had people he trusted watching his back. He glanced at Kiyah and sighed softly. It wasn't that he didn't trust her; he didn't know her.

Trust was a commodity that he had given far too easily in his past. And he'd had that trust returned, shattered, more than once. Rodney McKay was a smart man. He'd only needed his trust broken a few times before the lesson took hold in a deeply ingrained instinct. His sense of trust, once fractured so brutally by people intent on exploiting his genius, was kept locked tightly away. He'd learned to trust again, when he became part of a team, but he still held his trust close. He looked at Kiyah again and wished fervently that it was Teyla at his back.

۞۞۞

Kiyah parked the Jeep on the street. She led McKay through a short alley clogged with litter and weeds, slipped through a gate and crouched low against the back wall of Caffiends.

"Stay low, stay quiet." She cautioned McKay. He nodded in agreement. Kiyah's expression was as serious as Sheppard's during covert operations.

They crab-walked swiftly along the wall and stayed low under the kitchen windows of the coffee house. Kiyah stopped at the edge of a concrete frame supporting a solid and very rusty metal door. The door was secured to the frame with a slide bolt handle and a shiny padlock. Kiyah frowned, she wasn't expecting the lock, and gave Rodney a quick glance.

"You have the key?" His voice was loud in her ear even though he was whispering.

"Don't need one. I have yet to meet a lock I can't pick." Kiyah slid a slim leather case from the pocket of her olive-green fatigue pants. They looked very much like the BDUs the Earth-based SGC teams wore and Rodney recalled the previous evening's conversation. She crouched low over the lock, slender wires in hand and deftly maneuvered them until the lock opened with a sharp snick.

"Got it." She slid the wires back into the leather case, stashed the lock pick tools back in her pocket and grinned at him.

"That was easy."

"Yeah, it was." She grinned again. "The hard part is gonna be opening the door without making a lot of noise."

Rodney grimaced at the old door. The corroded hinges spoke of decades of exposure to harsh elements and they didn't look like they would be easily opened.

"How are we going to get that opened? That thing looks like it hasn't moved this century."

"Here." Kiyah pulled a blue and yellow spray can of WD40 from the small pack she carried. "Give the hinges a good soaking and wait a few."

Rodney gave the hinges a liberal application of the lubricant while Kiyah scouted the area. They waited a few minutes and he wondered if they'd be asphyxiated by petroleum fumes before the stuff penetrated the rust enough to move the door.

Kiyah tapped his shoulder, nodded toward the door and handed him a small flashlight.

"Let's do this. The steps are really narrow and it's going to be very dark once we close the door. Take the light and watch your step."

They heaved together and the door groaned and creaked, but finally opened enough for Rodney to squeeze through. Kiyah followed and together they maneuvered the heavy door shut behind them.

Narrow stairs led down to an uneven pock-marked concrete floor. Dusty cobwebs draped the room like tattered lace curtains and Rodney suppressed a shudder as he considered what kinds of bugs might be crawling around in the root cellar. Old wooden shelving sagged against the far wall while piles of junk crouched menacingly in the corners. The root cellar hadn't been used in years and he wondered why anyone would put a lock on the door. The rusted hinges and the weight of the door alone would have deterred even the most determined snoop.

Dust motes swirled around their ankles as they crossed the filthy floor. The collapsed staircase leading to the storeroom trap door lay in a heap like a giant-sized set of pick-up sticks. Rodney aimed the light overhead, located the trap door and groaned. The staircase framework was intact, but it looked anything other than sturdy. Kiyah slipped the small pack off her back and pulled out leather gloves.

"Hope these fit." She handed the larger pair to Rodney.

"What, now you worry about fingerprints?"

"Not fingerprints, slivers. This wood is pretty rough and I tore the crap out of my hands the last time I did this." Kiyah flexed her fingers as she stretched the butter-soft leather over her hands. "Hold the light. Let me go first and try the door. If there's anything blocking it, we'll have to come up with a plan B."

She grabbed the largest of the support posts, her hands at shoulder height. Rodney watched as she pressed her feet against the post and shinnied upward. She leaned away from the post, grabbed a crossbeam and pulled herself upright. Feet resting on the crossbeam, Kiyah grinned down at McKay.

"Now for the hard part."

"Hard part?" He whispered fiercely. "I thought that last bit was the hard part."

Kiyah eyed the beam above her head, judged the distance and jumped.

"Are you crazy?" McKay's voice was a strangled shout low in his throat as he watched her swing up and onto the beam in a perfect imitation of a trapeze artist on the high bar. Rodney McKay was much fitter and stronger than he'd been before he joined Team Sheppard, but he knew there was no way in this or any other universe he would ever be able to pull off that move. He wondered if even Teyla would have trouble with it.

Kiyah straddled the beam, her feet locked tightly at the ankles as she carefully slid along the beam. Rodney noticed her motion was more of a controlled lift and shift rather than a simple slide. He ran a hand lightly over the rough wood in front of him and winced at the number of small wooden slivers in his leather-clad palm. Kiyah's movements made more sense to him as his overly vivid imagination reminded him there are some places that splinters should never be.

"McKay. Light." Kiyah hissed down to him.

He pointed the light upward, cringed as Kiyah cursed and blinked when he inadvertently blinded her.

"Point it at the door, please." She placed both hands palm up against the door and gave it a push. It creaked softly but it moved. "There's nothing blocking it. Hang on a minute and it's your turn."

"Great. Can hardly wait." He looked at the framework again and wondered how in the hell he was supposed to climb that. He was completely unprepared for the rope ladder that tumbled through the opening. Eyes wide, mouth open like a landed fish, he glared at Kiyah. She grinned at him.

"I didn't think you'd want to try my route so I brought an alternative."

"What are you, a boy scout in disguise? And why didn't you say anything?" He hissed back at her.

She chuckled softly. "This was more fun. The look on your face. You're too easy, man."

He glared again but scrambled up the rope ladder gratefully. Anything beat a death defying leap through the air, even if the fall was only about 14 feet.

Rodney looked around the Caffiends storeroom. Sacks of coffee beans were stacked on pallets and filled the room with his favorite aroma. He inhaled deeply, his pleasure obvious in his smile. Kiyah returned the smile as she rolled up the rope ladder and replaced the trapdoor.

"You ready for this?" She asked softly.

"Yeah. It's not like we have a lot of choices. If Frigid Freak is up to something, we need to know."

Kiyah nodded. _"Frigid Freak, I need to remember that, tell Jill._ _She'll love it."_ Kiyah filed away Rodney's nickname for Lydia.

They listened at the stock room door, heard nothing and crept soundlessly down the hall. Kiyah stopped by a scarred door barely hidden from the main room of the coffee house. She wrapped her hand around the doorknob and turned. The knob held.

"Of course the damned thing is locked. Freaking paranoid Lydia." She cursed softly and tried the key.

"Shit!" she hissed.

"What?"

"She changed the damned lock. Good thing I brought these." Kiyah used the lock pick once again. The tumblers clicked and the door swung quietly inward. Rodney and Kiyah oozed into the room like shadows and she locked the door behind them while he made a beeline for the laptop on the desk.

"Come on, come on." He muttered as his fingers flew over the keys.

"Can you get in?"

"Genius at work, remember? There's not a computer I can't hack." Rodney's boast was backed by a smug smirk as he cracked Lydia's security code. "I'm in. This woman is an amateur."

Rodney's fingers flew over the keyboard in a ten digit ballet as he searched her files. He quickly found the files that contained the photos of Carson and Jennifer and himself.

"This is so not good." He muttered. His face paled as he skimmed the files. "What the hell?"

"What's wrong? What did you find?" Kiyah leaned over his shoulder and peered at the screen. "Son of a bitch! That's my place!"

The video wasn't of much interest; nothing more than legs, furniture and human, but the audio accompaniment was devastating. Rodney listened with growing horror as the conversation from the previous night played out in crisp clear tones.

Rodney stopped the video and looked at Kiyah. He opened a different video clip.

"Oh no." His voice was a harsh whisper and his face wore a greenish I'm-gonna-puke-my-guts-up look.

"What?" Kiyah leaned in for a closer look. "Oh God. Is that...?"

"Yeah."

"Jesus what did they do to him?"

Kiyah and Rodney shared a worried look as they stared at the video of a man lying on the floor of a barren white-tiled room. The occasional tremor in his body was the only sign he was alive. It was like watching a train wreck, horrifying and morbidly fascinating and they watched as if they looked away the man would vanish. After hours of searching and worrying, they had finally found Carson Beckett.

۞۞۞


	13. Racing in the Street

**Chapter 13**

**Racing in the Street**

"Well, I guess we know she has him..." Kiyah spoke softly as if she feared disturbing the man starring in the video.

"But where? I don't suppose you know where this place is?" His concern for his friend erased the usual snark from his voice.

"I'm not sure. It doesn't look familiar." Kiyah frowned as she thought of places that might house the frightening white room.

"We need to get out of here, now."

"Why?"

"This is a live feed. Your psycho bitch boss could walk in here any minute and if she finds us here it would be bad, very, very bad."

"But she doesn't work on Saturdays."

"Then why does she have this thing live?" Rodney looked at Kiyah as he gauged the depths of her naivety.

"I don't know. She has never worked a Saturday before." Kiyah frowned. "Hey, can you use the live feed; maybe trace it back to its point of origin to find this place?"

"Maybe. But we need to get out of here. And I need to take this" he waved at the computer. "We can't leave it here."

"What? No way! I said I would get you in for a look. You didn't say anything about...about taking anything. God she will fucking kill me if that computer disappears."

"There's information on here, secret information that I can't even begin to tell you about on here. We can't leave it behind."

"Then download it." Kiyah handed him a small flash drive. "Here, download it then wipe the drive."

"Not good enough. We need to go through this; see what's been compromised."

"Just download it. We can erase the data..."

"Were you not listening? Not good enough. Look, some of this...she's gotten into the SGC databases. Something in there led her to Carson. We need to know how and why and the only way to do that is if I study what she's got and how she got it. And to do that, I need time."

"Which we don't have much of."

"Which is why we need to take this and go, now." Rodney's patience, never in abundance was nearly depleted as he explained the situation. He frowned at Kiyah and she nodded.

He quickly downloaded the data onto the flash drive. "Just in case." He answered Kiyah's unspoken question.

"God you are taking her computer." She watched as he shut down the laptop and disconnected cables.

"Pack." His fingers snapped impatiently. Kiyah slung the small pack over to him, her eyes wide with disbelief as he stuffed the laptop inside.

"You really are doing this. And you think I'm crazy." She shook her head. "I'm gonna need a new job."

"Sooner than you think." Lydia's icy voice sliced through the room like Ronan's extra-large, extra-sharp knife. She stood behind the closed door and smirked at the startled trespassers. It was a look that would send the Wraith running for cover.

Rodney backed away from the desk, edged closer to Kiyah, her pack held in front of him like a shield. Kiyah stepped back from Lydia and her scary smile and the small but deadly gun she held with a practiced hand.

"Dr. McKay. I sent one of my colleagues to pay you a visit, but you weren't where we expected you to be. I'd like to thank you for stopping by; I've wanted to have a little chat with you.

"Uh...yeah....I..." he stammered, swallowed against a mouth gone desert dry with fear.

"I believe you have something that belongs to me."

"What? This..."

"Hand it over."

Rodney considered his options, his eyes on Lydia. He had no doubt she wouldn't hesitate to use that gun on either of them. He sensed Kiyah moving and wondered what she was doing. The standoff shifted in a slow motion dance. Rodney and Kiyah edged closer to the window; Lydia closer to the desk and them.

"The bag, Dr. McKay. Today." Lydia's gun hand twitched in sharp little waves.

Rodney looked at the pack as if he'd forgotten he held it. He sensed, rather than saw, Kiyah shift behind him. He wondered what she was doing and wished once again that it was Teyla at his back.

Lydia's eyes narrowed at him and her finger tightened on the trigger of the gun. "Dr. McKay, I'm not going to ask again. I need you alive for our little talk; however, I don't need you intact."

Rodney took a deep breath and hurled the bag straight at Lydia's head. It was the moment Kiyah was waiting for. As Rodney threw the pack, she slammed the floor lamp through the window. The musical tinkling of breaking glass played counterpoint to Lydia's furious scream.

"Come on." Kiyah grabbed Rodney's jacket, jerking him toward the window. He dove out the window, Kiyah hot on his heels. They rolled to their feet, running from Caffiends. Lydia screamed incoherent curses punctuated by gunshots and bullets that cut pockmarks in the ground around them. Although unnecessary, the bullets were an added incentive and Rodney outran Kiyah as he set a new personal best land speed record. "_If Sheppard and Ronan could see me now."_

Their flying feet carried them to Kiyah's Jeep. She vaulted through the open roof of the Jeep not bothering with the door. McKay scrambled into the vehicle as Kiyah slammed it into gear, grinding the gears and hitting second as she jumped the curb strip and peeled away from the parking spot.

A large heavy black Chevy Suburban growled on their tail as Lydia and her hired help chased them through the streets of Colorado Springs. Rodney ducked at the high pitched whine of a bullet overhead.

"Go faster!" He screamed at Kiyah.

"I'm trying! They've got more horses than us!" She pushed the gas pedal to the floor as she tried to coax a little more speed from the Jeep. She swerved around a slower vehicle, gained a little distance from the pursuit.

Rodney watched the SUV narrow the gap on the Jeep. "They're gaining on us! You have to go faster!"

"I'm trying! Instead of criticizing my driving, do something!"

"Do something? Do what?"

"I don't know, you're the genius. Improvise!"

Rodney leaned over the seat, searched the backseat and the small cargo area for anything useful. He grabbed a toolbox, lug wrench and fire extinguisher, tossed them on the backseat of the Jeep. The toolbox yielded a small set of wrenches, not much good for stopping the SUV unless he planned on climbing into the engine. He discarded them, selected the short pry bar and a hammer.

He hefted the pry bar in his hand, tested its weight and balance. "Let them get closer and when I tell you hit the gas!"

"What! I thought you wanted me to go faster! What are you doing?"

"Trying to save our asses! Just do what I tell you! Let them get closer!"

Kiyah slowed the Jeep slightly, allowed the SUV to close the gap between the vehicles a little more.

"That's good! Hold it!"

Rodney drew back his arm and hurled the pry bar like a javelin.

CRACK!

His aim was true and the Suburban sported a new assortment of fractures in its windshield.

"Nice hit McKay!" Kiyah cheered and Rodney lifted the hammer. He ducked again as another bullet whizzed past his ear.

"Dammit! Stop shooting at me!" He swung the hammer over his head, whipped his wrist as he brought it around and released it with as much power as he could.

CRACK!

The hammer joined the pry bar on damage patrol, added to the collection of fissures in the glass. The Suburban swerved, nearly wiped out a minivan before it rushed forward. Kiyah swerved the Jeep around a semi, slammed on the gas and hurtled up the on ramp toward Interstate 25.

"Where are you going?"

"Short cut. Are they still back there?"

Rodney ducked lower in the seat as bullets whined overhead. "That would be a yes."

"I can't lose them on the highways. They're just too fast."

Kiyah yanked the Jeep off the highway at the next exit. "Come on, come on..."she wrestled the steering wheel as she fought to keep the Jeep upright. Rodney risked a glance behind them. The SUV with its longer wheel base had slowed, but not fallen too far behind. The Jeep gained traction and sped up the slight incline of the county two lane road.

"What are you doing? We're safer on the main road!"

"No we're not! They were still shooting and they had witnesses." Kiyah swerved off the pavement onto a dirt service road. The Jeep shot twin rooster tails of dust in the air.

"What's the plan; choke them to death on dust?"

"If only it were that easy. No, this road narrows quite a bit up ahead. The Jeep's small enough to get through, but that big-ass boat they're driving will never fit through the gap. We just have to stay ahead of them a little longer."

Rodney nodded. As far as plans went, this one was a page right out of the John Sheppard Make-It-Up-As-We-Go Manual of Mad Escapes. If Kiyah pulled it off, Rodney decided he'd offer her a job on Atlantis as his own personal coffee barista. Like she said, she was going to need a new job.

Neither of them was prepared for the jolting crash of the Suburban as it smashed against the back of the Jeep.

"SHIT!" Kiyah wrestled the wheel and convinced the Jeep to stay on the road. "Hang on!"

Rodney wrapped his hands around the roll bar and looked at the items left in his improvised arsenal. He selected the lug wrench and prepared to throw it. He never got the chance. The Suburban surged through the dust cloud like a hungry shark in pursuit of its prey and slammed into the Jeep. The vehicles locked bumpers and the Suburban forced the smaller vehicle into the nearest stand of trees.

Screeching crunching metal and snapping branches provided the background music and Rodney pitched backward into the front seat of the Jeep, his lower back slammed painfully into the dash board. He blinked and watched half a dozen blonds with red stripes on their faces heft fire extinguishers at an astonishingly large number of heavily armed men. _Fire extinguisher versus big guns. Not exactly a fair match_, Rodney decided. He blinked again at the encroaching darkness and decided that right now, there was no one he'd rather have at his back than Kiyah Menomonee.

۞۞۞


	14. Trapped

A/N: I'd just like to take a moment and thank all of you who have been reading and leaving reviews. I really appreciate it. I know it's a little long between postings, but I'm trying to post at least one chapter a week. Real life has been real busy for me right now. Hopefully things will ease back a little in a couple of weeks. Anyway, I plan to stick with the one chapter a week for now. I may pick up the pace as time allows.

Thanks for sticking with me. I appreciate it. And now...on with the story.

**Chapter 14**

**Trapped**

The room was quiet. The laughter that had tormented him was but a faint echo that skittered on the edge of his memory. He woke slowly, as if swimming through layers of taffy toward lucidity. He'd flirted with drugs in his younger days, even dropped acid once with a cousin and his girlfriend. That experience had been a pleasure cruise compared to this. His memory was broken, shattered into millions of tiny glittering bits like the diamond-sharp chips of a smashed mirror. He grasped at the fragments, tried to sort them into some semblance of order. "_What the hell did she do to me?"_ He recalled a woman; the coldness in her touch froze his soul.

She hurt him, he remembered. Her touch carried pain and horror. She pulled from him everything good and bright in his life and replaced it with fear and misery. She made him her vessel; filled him with hopelessness and failure. He could still feel the laughter as his failures weighed, measured, judged and found him wanting. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes as he tried to ease the burning pain and dryness.

"_Easy lad, take it slow."_ The doctor was back. "_Ye need ta get some water."_ Carson rolled on his side, curled against the first wave of abdominal cramps and told the doctor to shut up. He was hot and cold and his head ached and he shivered and sweated and pulled in tighter and wished he could just melt through the floor. He hurt in ways he'd never imagined a man could hurt and he knew that he wouldn't be able to stand much more of Lydia's tender ministrations. He also knew, with a clarity that chilled him to his core, that Lydia was just getting started. He sighed and wrapped his arms tighter around his belly. It was going to be a long day.

۞۞۞

Rodney McKay opened his eyes to glaring whiteness and slammed them shut again. He groaned softly, rolled his head against the soft cushion and wondered who would be so thoughtful to provide a pillow but so inconsiderate with the lights.

"Easy McKay. Don't you dare puke on me." A calm voice, accompanied by a gentle hand stroking his face, tugged him back to wakefulness.

"Whe...where are we? What happened?" He licked his lips, searching for moisture in his dry throat.

"The white room." Kiyah spoke softly as if she were trying not to call attention to them.

"White room...like...the Beatles."

"White room...like the video."

"Right." The switches connected and Rodney's eyes flew open again as he remembered the live link video feed in Lydia's office. "Is Carson here? How is he?"

"Yeah, he's here and not so good."

"Well didn't you check on him? Make sure he's ok?"

"I tried. He called me Perna, hugged me. Then he screamed at someone named Michael and knocked me on my ass. He packs a wallop. He was pacing over there" Kiyah pointed at the far side of the cell, "for a while. He's been sitting there, just staring at us for a while. He seems ok as long as I stay still and don't try going near him."

"How'd we get here? What happened?"

"I crashed." Kiyah's voice was soft and laced with regret. "I'm sorry, Dr. McKay."

"Sorry...for what?"

"This...all off it." Kiyah waved at the room. "If I hadn't said anything, Lydia wouldn't have paid any attention to you and you wouldn't be here now and...and...anyway...I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. Lydia is a psychopath and they rammed your Jeep and ran us off the road. The last thing I remember seeing was you armed with a fire extinguisher taking on the goon squad armed with very big guns."

Kiyah gave him a crooked grin. "Yeah, not one of my better ideas."

"Help me up." He grimaced as he shifted from Kiyah's lap to propped upright against the wall. He ran a hand over his face as he conducted a damage assessment. "Ow...ow!" His fingers found a tender spot over his eyebrow.

"You have a pretty good knot over your eye. I got the bleeding stopped but I don't know if you have any internal injuries. You have a nasty bruise on your lower back; it looks like it hurts."

"When did you get a medical degree?" He snapped at Kiyah, his voice sharper than he'd intended. He pretended not to see the flash of hurt in her eyes.

"I'm just saying...I'm sorry. Believe me or not, I really am sorry." Kiyah's vice was barely audible as she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Rodney glanced at her. He noticed the bruise and gash on her cheekbone, courtesy of Carson's fist and a long ugly cut from her eyebrow to her hairline.

"Hey, are you ok? I mean you're not hurt...well obviously you're hurt, but it's not bad, right?"

"I'm ok. It's not as bad as it looks."

"Really...'cause you don't look so good."

"I'm ok, honest. My head is pounding and I could really use a drink", Kiyah glanced at the sink and Carson glowering at them next to it, "but I don't think I'm ready for another round with Rocky."

Rodney watched Carson. His friend glared at them from across the room. Carson looked dreadful; his skin was flushed and sweat poured down his face. But it was his eyes that scared Rodney the most. They were wide and staring and showed absolutely no recognition of his friend. Rodney glanced at Kiyah; she shrugged and gave him a half smile.

"I should...um...go...um...check on Carson."

"Good luck. I got Mr. Hyde. Maybe he's turned back into Dr. Jekyll."

۞۞۞

Carson watched warily as the man approached him. He advanced slowly; his movements were guarded as if he was injured and he was trying to protect himself from further damage. As he got closer, Carson noticed the bruise on his face and the cut on his eyebrow.

Beckett frowned; he knew this man, at least he thought he did. He wracked his memory for clues and came up empty. He frowned and pressed tighter against the wall. The man halted, watched him. Carson was trapped; caught between the drug induced haze and his fear of the man before him. He rose on unsteady legs, his back against the wall as he edged away from the man.

The man's mouth moved. Carson cocked his head. The words sounded foreign but he recognized that voice. _"I know him...I think...I do."_ The man stopped; he stretched his hand toward Carson. The physician backed away and the man stopped moving.

"Carson...it's me, your friend, Rodney. Rodney McKay. Its ok, Carson. I...we..." Rodney gestured at Kiyah, "Just want to help. Please Carson, let us help you."

Beckett listened; the voice was familiar and the name of the owner danced on the edge of his awareness_. "Trust him."_ The rational doctor hibernating in his psyche whispered in his ear. _"He's your friend, trust him."_

"Rodney?' Carson's voice was rusty from screaming.

"Yeah Carson. It's me."

"God Rodney. Ye found me. Ye really found me." Carson grabbed McKay's shoulder, reassured by the strength and warm solidity of his friend.

"And it didn't take two years this time." Rodney pulled Carson's arm over his shoulders and guided him back to the wall. He eased the injured man to the floor; his eyes noted the cuts and bruises that marred Carson's face.

"God Carson, what did they do to you?"

"They tied me up and she...and she...she...drugged me." His voice climbed an octave and his accent thickened with his growing distress.

The click of the lock turning and the door opening abruptly ended the conversation. Three very large men entered the room. One of them carried a tray with bottled water and food. Another carried a small soft sided black bag with a large Red Cross emblem embroidered on the side. The third carried a strange weapon in his hand and he aimed it with casual indifference at the three captives.

Rodney jumped to his feet as the men entered the room. He intended to stand between Beckett and the goons. The doctor had other ideas and scrambled for the relative sanctuary under the sink. Kiyah hunched in a wary crouch as she watched from the opposite side of the room.

The men laughed at their prisoners' reactions and the one with the weapon made a lewd gesture at Kiyah. The others deposited the items they were carrying on the floor and grinned. They didn't speak and walked out of the room. They slammed the door behind them; the click of the lock punctuated their exit.

No one moved. In all his experience as a prisoner, nothing had prepared Rodney for this. He stared at the supplies and his companions. Carson curled up tighter under the sink, his arms wrapped around the pedestal, his face buried between his shoulder and the wall. His pulse pounded in his ears and his body shook with tremors.

"Well, that was different." Kiyah broke the stillness of the room. She shrugged, walked over and after giving the tray and the pack an experimental poke, deemed them safe to pick up. She carried the items over to the men and sat down.

Rodney joined her and gave the food a quick glance. Powerbars. Not his first choice, but then he hadn't eaten for several hours and gift horses and all. He poked through the bars, no chocolate, and chose a strawberry bar instead. Kiyah opened the water and took a long drink.

They turned to Carson under the sink. He hadn't moved since the door closed.

Rodney crouched next to him. "Carson? It's ok. They're gone. Come on." Rodney reached out and touched Carson's shoulder. He felt the other man's tension and fear in the tremors that wracked his body.

Kiyah crouched next to Rodney. "Dr. Beckett, please come out. It's Kiyah; we met at the coffee shop. I know Lydia hurt you. We can help you, but you have to come out."

Carson risked a glance over his shoulder. Rodney's hand was an anchor; a tether that tied him firmly in this reality. He looked at the blond woman with the dark-green eyes. Her face was kind and concerned and she made no attempt to touch him. He watched cautiously; she backed away, picked up a bottle of water and broke the seal on the cap.

"Here." Kiyah handed the bottle to Rodney. "He's got to be thirsty."

"Come on Carson. Time to come out." Rodney held the water just out of his reach. Carson was desperately thirsty; his throat felt drier than the Sahara. He slowly unwrapped his arms from the sink and crept out from his safe haven. Rodney handed him the water and he drank gratefully.

Kiyah opened the medical pack, sorted through the supplies and selected what she needed for basic first aid.

"Dr. McKay. They gave us some medical supplies. It's not much, but we can at least clean up and bandage our cuts." Kiyah gestured at the materials she'd pulled from the pack.

"Yeah, that would be good. Come on Carson; you get to play patient for a change." He watched with growing dismay as Beckett backed away, suspicion clouded his features once again.

"Uh Dr. McKay...maybe if you go first...maybe he'll trust us more." Kiyah spoke softly as she shot a worried look at Carson. "We need him to trust us if we are going to get out of here."

"Get out of here? Have you looked at this place? How, exactly, do you plan on getting out of here?"

"I don't know, yet. But I do know we need to get out of here and we need to do it sooner rather than later. I don't know what Lydia did to him," Kiyah nodded at Carson, "but I'd rather not stick around to find out if she's gonna do it to us."

"Maybe she won't do anything. Maybe she'll just ask us some questions and let us go."

"And maybe time will run backwards and we'll all wake up and this will just be a great big fat cosmic joke." Kiyah snapped at him.

"She's not going to let us go." Carson added his two cents. "She hurt me, Rodney. She's going to do it again." His voice shook and his eyes were haunted.

"He's right. Lydia wants something; otherwise we'd already be dead. Dr. Beckett, what did Lydia do to you?"

Carson stared at Kiyah. "She hurt me. They...they...they hit me...and she...and she...she...gave me something...it was...blo...bloody awful." He shuddered as he recalled Lydia's fingers in his hair and her hands on his face. "She...she...poisoned me. Oh God. It hurts...it hurts so much." He doubled over as fangs of pain chewed their way through his gut.

"I know." Kiyah laid a gentle hand on his arm. It was cool against his heated skin. "Maybe we can help...a little anyway." Kiyah held the medical pack in his line of sight. "If you'll let us."

Carson nodded. "I'm sorry I hit ye, lass. I thought..."

"It's ok. I'll be alright." Kiyah didn't add the 'if we get out of here.' She didn't need to; Rodney and Carson were both aware of what was at stake if they remained in Lydia's hands.

۞۞۞


	15. Trouble River

**Chapter 15**

**Trouble River**

Daniel Jackson knocked on Kiyah's door, surprised when the door swung inward. It wasn't like Kiyah to leave her door unlocked, let alone opened. He hesitated on the threshold; his instincts screaming "Wrong, wrong, wrong" as he stood in the doorway. He took a deep breath, steadied his nerves and stepped into the apartment.

The room felt wrong, heavy as if it were waiting for the next chapter in an unfinished drama. Daniel looked around; the open floor plan of the living room and dining area provided a large inviting space but few clues as to why the door had been left unlocked. Daniel's nerves tingled; he had that prickly sensation at the back of his neck that warned of danger.

He looked around, moved deeper into the room and shut the door behind him. He frowned as he looked around. Paintings and photos hung straight on the walls, furniture sat upright on flat rugs. On the surface, the apartment looked undisturbed. Daniel turned in a circle as he conducted a visual survey of the room. He gasped and rushed into the dining area and stared at the cleared table. He realized with a sickening hollow in the pit of his stomach that it wasn't a mess that was the problem. It was the absence of a mess that was the problem.

He'd expected a table strewn with notes and sketches and maps. He'd expected a headband and a leather-clad crystal and a silver box. He'd expected Kiyah Menomonee and Rodney McKay and Jennifer Keller. As he looked at the smooth flat plain of the table, cleared of the detritus of the previous evening's investigation, Daniel realized that the missing items and people spelled bad news. He'd pretty much dismissed the idea that Carson Beckett's disappearance was linked to the artifact from the desert. Now, confronted with the emptiness of the apartment, he wasn't so sure.

Daniel removed his glasses and scrubbed a hand over his face. He wondered if Kiyah had followed through on her threat to remove the artifact and its accompanying research from her place. She'd worked for the SGC for a while and he knew she maintained enough contacts that she'd be able to get McKay and Keller back there if she wanted. He just didn't see the two doctors returning to Cheyenne Mountain without Beckett.

The quietness of the apartment was unnerving. Daniel strained his ears, listening for the smallest sound in the deafening silence. He thought he heard something. "Hello?" Daniel called softly. There, he heard it again; definitely a muffled thump from deeper in the apartment. He looked around the apartment for something, anything he could use as a weapon.

Words were his weapon of choice and he wielded them with the precision and expertise of a marksman with a rifle. His years on a first contact team had taught him that words worked even better when they were backed up with something more substantial. Kiyah apparently didn't subscribe to the same theory. Her apartment was sadly lacking in the small arms department. He spied a large heavy glass bottle of olive oil on the counter. "Better than nothing." And armed with the weighty squared bottle he crept down the hall.

The thump was louder, rhythmic as he made his way down the hall. Daniel sneaked into the guest bedroom, his palms sweaty, and his throat dry as he moved into the room. He stopped and listened for the noise again. He heard the thump again and pinpointed its location on the closet. He swiftly crossed the room, hefted the bottle and yanked open the closet door.

He blinked in shock at the young woman lying on the closet floor. Jennifer Keller looked up at him, one eye opened wide with fear and the other swollen nearly shut as she stared up at him.

"Dr. Keller what happened? What are you doing in there?" Daniel lowered the bottle and offered her a hand off the floor.

Jennifer grasped the proffered hand gratefully and leaned on Daniel while she waited for circulation to return to her lower extremities. "Somebody hit me and locked me in the closet. I'm sorry Dr. Jackson; I think he took everything from last night."

"Don't worry about that now. How are you?"

"My head hurts."

"Yeah, I guess it does. You have a pretty good shiner." Daniel nodded to her as he eased her down on a dining room chair. "I'll get you some ice for that."

Daniel pulled a few ice cubes from the freezer and after a brief scavenger hunt, located a plastic zip top bag and a dish towel. He dropped the ice into the bag, zipped it, wrapped the whole thing in a towel and handed it to the injured doctor. She smiled gratefully.

"Thank you." Jennifer winced as she placed the ice pack against her swollen eye.

"Dr. Keller..."

"Please, call me Jennifer."

"Ah...Jennifer it is then." Daniel smiled. "Jennifer do you remember what happened?"

"Yes. Last night, after you left, we went out to look for Carson. We didn't find him so we came back here. Kiyah offered to drive us back to the hotel, but Rodney wanted to look at that artifact again and it was late, so we stayed here instead." She shifted in the chair as she eased an ache in her back.

"Kiyah told me something last night." She tilted her head as she considered her next words. "She told me that Lydia took pictures of us."

"Lydia? Caffiends owner, Lydia? Why would she take pictures of you?" Daniel's brow furrowed at Jennifer's revelation.

"That's what Kiyah said. She thinks Lydia might have something to do with Carson's disappearance. But she doesn't know what it could be."

The furrows on Daniel's forehead deepened as he listened to Jennifer. "Kiyah told me a few weeks ago that she thought Lydia was up to something. She said Lydia had been asking a lot of questions about me..." His voiced trailed off and he frowned as he recalled his conversation with the barista.

"Kiyah said she had talked to you about it..." Jennifer started.

"Did she tell you I pretty much dismissed her?"

"She did say something to that effect. Something along the lines of 'he thinks I'm being paranoid.'"

Daniel winced. That conversation had ended with shouting, swearing and slamming doors and Kiyah avoiding him for two weeks. In the end, they'd called a truce when their mutual curiosity got the best of them, but Daniel wondered if he shouldn't have given Kiyah's concerns a little more consideration. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, aware of Keller's eyes on him.

"Yeah, not one of my better moments." He rubbed a hand through his hair. "Jennifer, do you remember anything about what happened here?"

"Kiyah and Rodney decided to take a look around Lydia's office, see if they can find anything to connect her to Carson. I stayed here to wait for you. Someone knocked on the door; I thought it was you so I opened the door and somebody hit me." She rubbed her face and delicately probed her injury. "It was one guy, big. I don't remember seeing him before, but it happened so fast I didn't really get a good look at his face. He knocked me down and dragged me into the apartment and then he cleared everything off the table."

Jennifer shivered as she recalled the events. Daniel stepped into the living room and returned a short time later and draped a soft blanket over Jennifer's shoulders. She smiled her thanks at him and continued her story.

"He seemed to know exactly what he was looking for. He didn't ask any questions or say anything, just took all our notes and the map and the artifacts. Rodney made some progress deciphering that stone tablet and he was working on Kiyah's computer. The guy took that too. After he had everything packed up, he dragged me down the hall and locked me in the closet."

She shrugged and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Daniel frowned. Carson's disappearance, the break in at Kiyah's, stolen artifacts, photos taken of colleagues for no reason, Kiyah's suspicions; each of these a seemingly unrelated event, but when taken as a collective, it was too damned convenient. Daniel knew coincidence was a part of life, but he was jaded enough to look below the surface.

As he looked at the events of the past six weeks, the coincidences kept piling up. And that meant only one thing in the Daniel Jackson Intergalactic Survivor's Guide: trouble. He wasn't sure how Beckett was tied in with the artifact, but he trusted Kiyah's instincts enough to know if she was concerned, then those concerns had some basis in fact. He considered their options as he regarded Dr. Keller sitting across the table from him. Slumped and dejected, Jennifer looked like the wrong end of a bar room brawl after the annual Air Force vs. Army football game.

Kiyah and McKay had gone to investigate Lydia Harper's lair several hours ago. By Daniel's reckoning, they should have returned, either empty-handed or armed with information supporting the suspicions. He rubbed his thumb over his cell phone, indecisive. Call Kiyah or not? Both actions carried a risk. Daniel flipped open the phone and dialed.

"_Hi it's me. If you know me leave a message. If you don't, hang up now before your phone self destructs."_

He glared as he listened to the greeting. Kiyah's phone went straight to voice messaging; no help there. Daniel sighed. He assumed worst case scenario and that meant Kiyah and McKay were probably in trouble. He hoped they hadn't crossed paths with Lydia. If the woman was as dangerous as Kiyah believed, there was no telling what mess McKay's mouth had bought them.

He folded the phone without leaving a message and slipped it back into his jacket. Sighing, he laid a hand on Jennifer's arm. "I don't suppose you feel up to a little side trip?"

"You want to go look for Rodney and Kiyah." Jennifer stated it as fact. "You think Kiyah is right, that Lydia has something to do with all this. And you think they are in trouble."

Her voice was soft and her eyes begged him to contradict her; reassure her that they were fine and everything was fine and Carson was fine and they would all walk through the door in the next few minutes. Her heart fell at his simple "yeah".

Jennifer squared her shoulders, her expression grim and resolved, "Then I'm up for whatever you have in mind Dr. Jackson."

۞۞۞


	16. Into the Fire

**Chapter 16**

**Into the Fire**

"Ow God! Poke my eye out, why don't you?"

"Well if you'd sit still, I could finish faster." Kiyah snapped at her reluctant patient.

"You should let Carson do it; he is the doctor." Rodney snapped back and grabbed Kiyah's wrist as she reached for him again.

"Yes and he looks like he wants to practice medicine." She glanced at the physician lying curled and shaking on the floor. He blinked bleary eyes at his companions.

"Rodney, she's doin' fine. Just let her finish." Carson whispered hoarsely.

"Fine."

McKay glared and snarked but let Kiyah finish the job of cleaning and bandaging the cut over his eye.

Rodney returned the favor, caring for Kiyah's injuries and she endured his clumsy movements in bitten-lip silence. First aid complete, they turned their attention to the doctor in the house.

Carson still looked like an extra from a horror movie film set. His face was flushed, sweaty and streaked with blood from his beatings. He lay curled on his side, his arms wrapped tightly around his torso while cramps tore through his stomach. He shivered, hot and cold, against the drugs as his body metabolized them and shed itself of their toxic properties.

Rodney bit his lip as he watched his friend. He hated dealing with illness of any type. He really hated dealing with illness in a friend. He shrugged out of his jacket and laid it over Carson's shoulders, offering the sick man what little comfort he could. Kiyah sat with her back against the wall and with Rodney's help, eased Carson's head in her lap. She stroked his fevered skin with a bandage soaked in cool water, cleaning the cuts and washing away some of his discomfort. He closed his eyes and let his friends care for him.

"Son of a bitch! God why did they do this to you?" Kiyah whispered harshly. Beckett had finally drifted into an uneasy sleep. Kiyah decided to address the wounds to his wrists and was shocked by the damage she found. Rodney's eyes widened at the sight of Carson's mangled wrists and his gut churned while his overly active imagination played out images of what Carson endured to have torn his flesh so badly.

"He said she hurt him, that she gave him something. If it made him do...that" Rodney swallowed against the nausea coating his throat, "this is bad...very, very bad."

"I know." Kiyah's eyes were as soft as her voice. McKay watched her carefully cleaning Carson's injuries. Her hands were gentle and her voice kind as she murmured assurances of safety to the restless man sprawled across her lap. She caught him staring and smiled sadly. "We need to get out of here."

"I know." He agreed. "I just don't see how."

"Maybe there's a way to unlock the door from in here."

"I doubt it."

"It's worth a look." She studied him before continuing. "At this point, we have much more to gain than lose."

He nodded. "You're ok here?" He waved at Carson.

"Yeah. I don't think he's going anywhere soon."

"Right."

Rodney McKay was a genius with locked doors, if they were Ancient doors powered by control crystals. The door to this room wasn't and it didn't take him long to figure out that old-fashioned one-way locks worked just fine for keeping prisoners securely in their cells. He vented his frustration on the door with a well aimed kick.

He explored the rest of the cell with similar results. The window was too far off the ground to climb through and Rodney doubted they'd be able to break the glass even if they had the means to do so. He inspected the area around the sink; maybe there was a drain they could slide through. He found a small vent in the wall near the toilet and quickly ruled it out as a potential escape route. Kiyah was the slimmest of the three, but Rodney doubted she'd fit through the vent. There was no way he or Carson would.

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. They weren't getting out of this room until someone let them out. Rodney frowned and walked back to Kiyah and Carson. She tilted her head at him, read the expression in his eyes.

"No good then."

"No. We're not getting out of here on our own." Rodney slid down the wall and sat next to Kiyah.

"So I guess we wait?"

"Yeah. We wait." Rodney folded his arms across his chest and glared at the door.

He considered their situation. Banged around and bruised but otherwise in relatively good condition, he knew they would have to make a move sooner rather than later. Carson's condition spoke volumes to the measures Lydia was willing to take to get what she wanted. The longer they waited, the less likely they'd have the strength for escape. At least they'd found Carson. At least he wasn't alone in this. He'd find a way to get out. _'I promise Carson, I'll get us out. All of us.'_ Rodney closed his eyes and settled in for the wait to end.

۞۞۞

Daniel and Jennifer stepped through the heavy glass door of Caffiends. The coffee shop was quiet. Early morning coffee hounds had long come and gone. The place was empty and devoid of energy. It reminded Jennifer of the day after house parties her sorority had held; it almost seemed as if the guests sucked the vibrancy from the walls when the party was over and they left.

Jill looked up as they entered and waved in greeting. She seemed as drained as the building and Jennifer looked her over with a clinical eye.

"Jill, have you seen Kiyah?" Daniel got right to the point.

"No. She doesn't work on Saturdays and she doesn't come near this place on her days off anymore." Jill frowned as she recalled a time when they always hung out at the shop. Lydia's arrival had changed that.

"Is there anywhere she usually goes on Saturday? Some place else she hangs out?"

"She sometimes goes to High Ridge Ranch and goes riding with some of the guys. I think she mostly just drives around in that Jeep of hers and takes pictures." Jill wiped a towel over the counter while she considered her colleague's habits. "She might have gone to the lakes. I don't know. She doesn't talk to us like she used to."

"Are you sure? Look it's really important we find her and Dr. McKay." Jennifer tried her luck.

Jill narrowed her eyes at the other woman. "I told you, I haven't seen Kiyah and I haven't seen that other guy you were asking about last night." Jill's eyes shifted back to the counter and she whisked the towel over its smooth surface.

"Is Tim around?" Daniel glanced around for the tall, thin Jamaican.

"No he isn't around and he didn't see anything either. Look, this place is dead and I'm gonna just close up and go. If I see Kiyah; I'll tell her you're looking for her."

Jill snatched the towel off the counter and stomped through the swinging door to the kitchen. Daniel and Jennifer exchanged a look. They wondered if Lydia's frosty temper was contagious.

Daniel shrugged. "Looks like this was a dead end."

"Yeah. I guess we should try that ranch. We might have better luck there." Jennifer turned toward the door after a last glance at the kitchen.

Daniel followed her to the parking lot, climbed into his car and after a moment, drove away. Jill locked the front door behind them and turned to the mountain of a man holding the strange looking weapon on Tim.

"Ok. I did what you said. I got rid of them. Now let us go."

"Yes you did. But I'm afraid it's not that simple. Now, if you please." The man gestured toward the storeroom.

They entered the room at the man's direction. "I'm afraid you will need to stay here just a little longer."

"What are you talking about?" Jill's eyes widened as the man pulled the trigger on his weapon. A bright blue light burst from the device and struck Tim in the chest. He grunted and folded to the ground in a quivering heap like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

"Wait don't ple..." Jill fell beside her coworker and friend.

"Sorry mates." The man looked at his prisoners; regret touched his expression and softened his eyes and his voice. "Orders is orders. At least you won't feel anything."

He tucked the weapon inside his jacket and pulled a small remote device from his pocket. He flicked a switch and with a last sad look at the bodies on the floor, pressed a button. He put the remote back in his pocket and slipped through the stockroom trapdoor, dropped lightly to the floor and eased out of the root cellar behind the building. He leaned against the alley fence long enough to see the first tendrils of smoke curling from the kitchen window.

He pulled a cell phone form his pocket and hit the pre-programmed speed dial.

"It's done." He listened to the voice on the other end, said "I understand" and flipped the phone closed. He stashed it back into his pocket and turning away from the bright orange glow in the window, he walked away. He didn't look back at the building. He didn't need to.

۞۞۞


	17. Streets of Fire

**Chapter 17**

**Streets of Fire**

Lydia Harper paced around the makeshift lab, checking the items retrieved from Kiyah's apartment. She was delighted with her acquisitions, both the objects and the test subjects locked securely in the room one floor below her lab. She'd nearly screamed with delight when she'd opened her office door and found Dr. McKay and Kiyah in her office. It was a sign from the gods, an omen that she was to succeed, to have such a gift handed to her.

And then that bitch Kiyah nearly ruined everything with that ridiculous escape attempt. Lydia ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip, a frown etched on her face. _'I should have just shot them both.'_ She tightened her grip on the back of a chair and checked her watch. It was nearly time to start the next phase of her plan. She was so close; she could taste the sweetness of victory on her tongue. She shivered with anticipation; adrenaline hummed in her veins as she paced the lab.

"Soon." She promised the room. "Very soon." She settled in a chair, played back the video recording of the meeting in Kiyah's apartment, noting items that needed further definition. This ATA genetic thing was fascinating. There must be a way to exploit this and she knew the Association would pay, handsomely, for this new development. She wasn't going to just solidify her current position; she was getting a promotion. Nothing less was acceptable.

Lydia opened the file of Dr. McKay's translations from the artifact. She didn't understand much of what he'd written, but she knew her prisoners did. She looked at the video feed from the cell. The three were quiet; they'd given up snapping at each other and searching for a way out several hours ago and now sat against the wall as they waited. _'How touching.'_ She sneered at the way they sat; Kiyah's head rested against Rodney's shoulder, Carson's head pillowed in her lap.

Beckett was much stronger than she'd expected and had fought the serum-induced hallucinations with tenacity. She almost admired him for it. He still looked like hell re-heated and she expected he'd be much more cooperative for her next session. She had additional leverage against him and she had no reservations about using it. She wondered if she should keep him. His unique physiology alone warranted further study.

She wasn't certain, but she speculated the Association had a faction dedicated to this type of work. Even shadow organizations had a rumor mill and although she wasn't prone to spreading gossip, Lydia listened to it. Delivery of a healthy cloned specimen could do much to advance the Association and by default, her position within it. She tapped her slim gold pen against her teeth as she considered her options.

Lydia returned her attention to the file on Kiyah's computer. It wasn't long before the lack of information had her seething with frustration. She took a deep cleansing breath. No matter, she'd get the information she wanted. She had the means, leaning against the wall downstairs. She knew she'd need to change her timetable a little to allow for the translations, but she could now afford that time.

She leaned back in the chair and sipped at a glass of self-congratulatory champagne. Perfectly chilled, the tiny bubbles sparked on her tongue and her lips curved in a slight smile. There was nothing in the world like fine champagne and the glass in her hand was one of the finest. _'Only the best. Nothing but the best. From here on out.'_ Lydia raised the glass to the video screen in a silent toast. She sipped the icy liquid and smiled and Lydia Harper vowed she'd never drink coffee again.

She checked her watch and tossed back the last of her drink. It was time to get started.

۞۞۞

Daniel clenched the steering wheel of his car in frustration until his knuckles were white and Jennifer wondered if he'd squeeze his hands right through the molded plastic.

"Well, that was a waste." He sighed and relaxed his hands.

"Yeah." Jen agreed. "So, now what?"

"We go back. There's something Jill isn't telling us." He ran a hand through his hair. "She was almost hostile, and that's not like her."

"I noticed that. She wasn't like that at all when we met her yesterday and she certainly wasn't like that at the concert. You don't think she's in trouble?"

"There is that possibility." Daniel glanced at Jennifer, noticed the anxiety creasing the skin around her eyes. "That Rodney and Kiyah ran into trouble."

"Yeah, tall platinum-blond trouble." Jennifer shivered. "Daniel, what if Lydia caught them breaking into her office? What will she do to them?"

"I honestly don't know. Kiyah seemed pretty certain that Lydia is up to no good and with everything that's happening, I'm inclined to agree with her." He sighed again. "If they did run into Lydia; things could get pretty ugly."

"I thought so. Kiyah was insistent that Lydia did something to some guy named Jerry." Jennifer closed her eyes and saw Kiyah's crumbling composure once more. "Daniel, I'm really scared for them."

He glanced at her. "I know. Me too."

They drove down the mountain road back towards the coffee shop. Lost in their individual thoughts, they didn't notice the first or the second police cars that sped around them. They did notice the fire truck and the ambulance and traded a glance when they realized where the truck was heading.

"Oh no. You don't suppose..." Jennifer's voice trailed off. If she didn't speak the words, maybe the worst wasn't happening.

"I don't know." Daniel's voice was taut with his own fear. He had dealt with McKay before and found him rude, condescending, patronizing and arrogant beyond compare. He'd also found him brilliant, compassionate and loyal to a fault. He wouldn't count the man among his circle of friends, but he didn't want to see him come to harm either.

Daniel turned the corner and pulled to the side of the road. Police officers cordoned off the street and were herding a growing crowd of looky-loos to a small playground.

"Oh no." Jennifer's voice was soft as she clutched his arm. "Daniel, look."

Thick black smoke poured from a two story, rusty ocher brick building. Flames leaped for freedom from shattered floor to ceiling windows and paint melted and pooled and smoldered and ignited in mini fires around iron furniture. Skeletal arms of shade umbrellas bent and twisted in a macabre dance from the heat of the unrelenting flames. The wind shifted and Jennifer caught the bitter fragrance of burnt coffee mingled with the sickly sweet scent of something else consumed in the conflagration.

"Oh Daniel." Jennifer buried her face against Daniel's chest, his arms wrapped around her in a comforting hug. "You don't think...Rodney and Kiyah...they..."

"No. Not until we have proof." He looked over her head, watching the fire consume Caffiends.

They stood together, locked in a mutual embrace of fear and despair and hope and comfort while the firefighters wrestled the blaze into submission. They waited, caught snips of conversation and drifted closer to the building as the other by-standers grew bored with standing by and left the scene. News crews arrived in vans and trucks and unreeled miles of cables and claimed their pieces from the scene of destruction. They waited and were on the front lines when the fire crews announced the grisly discovery in the storage room.

"...burned beyond recognition..."

"...couldn't tell if it's male or female..."

"... two deep fried crispy critters..."

"...looks like it might be..."

"...crime scene...arson...maybe more..."

Jennifer sagged against Daniel as they caught bits of conversation from the fire crews and police officers. He kept one arm wrapped tightly around her, supporting her and turning her away from the smoldering ruin of the once vibrant Caffiends.

"Oh God. Two of them. Daniel."

"I know," he said, his voice barely above a whisper as he leaned into her hair. "I know."

"What if...if it's them?"

"We don't know that." He guided her to the car. "We won't know anything until the police identify the bodies."

"What now? What do we do now?"

"Go back to Kiyah's place."

"Why?"

"Because if it's not them and they haven't run into trouble; it's the first place they'll go. If they have run into trouble, Kiyah will try to get me there. She knew I was coming over, so she'd look for me there."

"But what if..."

"We can't give up hope. Not yet."

"Shouldn't we go back to the SGC? At least call them and let them know what's going on?"

"I don't think so. The police here are pretty territorial. They aren't going to share information with a bunch of Marines and the SGC investigators running around. They might share information with a potential victim's concerned friends."

"That's why you want to go back to Kiyah's place."

"Yeah. We can get as much information from them by what they don't say as by what they ask us if we play our cards right. How are your acting skills?"

"A little rusty. It's been a while since I was on-stage. Why?"

"This whole thing reeks. Kiyah was right about one thing. There is something going on here and it starts with Lydia." Daniel frowned. "We saw the fire; heard the rumor that there were bodies discovered inside. We can't reach either of our friends and we are concerned. Stick to the bare truth. No volunteering information, let them ask."

"Right. You don't really think it's them, do you?" Jennifer wanted him to say _'no, of course I don't'_; wanted him to reassure her that Rodney and Kiyah were miles from the fire.

"Right now, I don't know what to think."

Jennifer nodded and pushed her fears to the back of her mind. She straightened her back and grabbed hold of the hope the Rodney and Kiyah were still alive. Until she had reason to believe otherwise; she'd hold onto that hope with every ounce of her resolve.

She turned to Daniel, "then until we know different; they're alive."

۞۞۞

They climbed the stairs to Kiyah's third floor apartment in silence. Jennifer unlocked the door with a borrowed key and stepped inside. The place already felt empty and unloved, a testimony to a life interrupted. Jennifer sat on the couch she'd admired the night before and scanned the room before dropping her head into her hands. Heat burned the back of her eyes and she pressed the heels of her hands against them, blocking the tears that threatened.

"Oh God. Rodney, Carson, Kiyah...please be alright. Please let us know you are alright," she whispered into her hands.

Daniel sat beside her and placed a supportive hand on her shoulder as she gathered her strength. He didn't speak. Until the police provided identities of the victims, there really wasn't much else to say.

۞۞۞


	18. Countin' On A Miracle

A/N: Sorry I didn't post anything last week. Real Life has been crazy busy lately, but that really isn't much of an excuse. So I'll just apologize and get on with the story.

Thank you all who have been reading and leaving reviews. I really appreciate them.

**Chapter 18**

**Countin' On A Miracle**

"_I will kill one just like her every day you refuse my request." Michael sneered at him as he cleaned his blade on his prisoner's blanket. "Their lives are in your hands." Michael gave his prisoner a last contemptuous look and strode from the cell. _

"_You have one day to give me your answer."_

_Red, so much red. The floor of his cell was coated with viscous rusty red. The air was thick with the iron tang of red and it coated his sinuses and his throat with every breath he drew. The young woman lay on her side, her face twisted in a caricature of a smile. Her eyes were wide, staring into infinity with a calm resignation of her fate. He sat on the hard narrow bench that doubled as his bed and stared at the woman and made his decision. _

_He would help. God help him in a world where his choice was limited to potential death or certain death, he would help. He told himself it was all really beyond his control and _

_at least with this choice some might survive. He curled on his side on the bench and closed his eyes and waited for the day to end._

Carson jerked out of the nightmare with a gasp; his eyes wide and frantic as he remembered where he was.

"Hey Carson. It's ok." Rodney rested a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Rodney?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"What are ye doin' here?"

"Rescuing you."

"Ach, are you now?" Carson arched an eyebrow at McKay. "And how's that workin' for ye?"

"Not so good, at the moment." Rodney studied Carson. The man was still flushed and a thin film of sweat coated his face. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine." Caron's hoarse shaky whisper contradicted his words.

"Sure you are. You know you look like shit and sound worse?"

"Why thank you, Rodney."

"I was just..." McKay's retort died on his lips as the lock clicked and the door swung open. Rodney scrambled to his feet, his movements clumsy and stiff from sitting on the floor for several hours. He stepped in front of Kiyah and Carson as Lydia and several of her henchmen entered the room.

"I trust the refreshments I provided were adequate; that you've all had sufficient rest?" Her cool gaze swept over the captives. Carson pressed his back against the wall. He held Kiyah's arm in a deathgrip.

"What do you want?" Rodney stepped forward, chin raised and arms folded across his chest in his trademark I'm-scared-but-refuse-to-show-it look.

"I want many things Dr. McKay." Lydia purred with a silk-smooth voice. "But right now I require your assistance with an item I've recently acquired."

"Stolen from my apartment more likely." Kiyah snapped.

Lydia frowned and nodded to her hired help. They stepped into the room, surrounded the prisoners and the man nearest McKay drilled a fist into the physicist's stomach. Rodney folded like a like a bad poker hand.

"You'll do well to hold your tongue, Ms. Menomonee; Dr. McKay's and Dr. Beckett's health depend on it." Lydia shot Kiyah a frosty glare down her long aquiline nose.

Kiyah returned the look, raising her chin in a remarkably Rodney-like pose. Carson watched the two women. It was like watching a pair of cats sizing each other up before the claws and fangs and fur started flying. He shuddered; the temperature in the room must have dropped 20 degrees. Kiyah's eyes narrowed but she bit her lip and said nothing.

Lydia nodded, pleased she'd read the situation right. Keeping three prisoners would be complicated, but they could be used one against the others to keep them all in line and cooperative.

"Take them." She snapped the order to her underlings and turned from the room. "Bring them to the lab."

"Lab?" Rodney mouthed the word to Kiyah and Carson as he was roughly propelled from the room. The trio was hustled down a broad corridor dimly lit with bare light bulbs strung every thirty feet. It reminded Kiyah of the type of lighting she'd seen in old mines. Dust caked the floor and swirled around their ankles as they walked. Rodney sneezed; the dust aggravated his allergies.

Kiyah counted the light bulbs and reached six before they were shoved into an elevator. The lift looked more like a cage suspended on a pulley and Rodney refused to look over the edge, certain that the cable would snap under the combined weight of prisoners, guards and the structure itself. The man who'd punched him pressed a button and the elevator groaned a slow ascent to the next level.

"Out." The single word was punctuated with an impatient wave of the gun in the guard's hand. They were pushed along another corridor, similar to the first, but cleaner and brighter. Thick doors with heavy metal mesh screening over small windows were evenly spaced along both walls of the corridor. Rodney grimaced and shivered. The place reminded him too much of a Genii complex, complete with dirty underground tunnels and heavily armed thugs. _"All we need is Kolya to spring from the shadows...oh wait, we have his creepy female counterpoint."_

Rodney was jerked out of his musings when the guards halted in front of an open door. They were standing on the threshold of a large open room. A computer, printer and Rodney's scanner were scattered across the scarred black countertops. Kiyah's laminated topo map was tacked to a wall and several white boards were covered with Rodney's partial translation of the stone tablet.

The artifacts from Kiyah's apartment sat in the center of a dingy brown table surrounded by hard metal chairs. Rodney took all this in at a glance, his eyes locking on the main feature of the lab.

A large heavy chair sat on a raised platform in the center of the room. Thick leather straps on the arms, legs, back and seat lent a sinister, malevolent appearance. To Rodney, the chair resembled 'Ol Sparky' from photographs he'd seen of early versions of the electric chairs in prison storerooms. He swallowed thickly and tried not to imagine what this version was used for. Lydia stood on the platform, her hand stoking the heavy oak with a loving caress. Rodney shivered and licked dry lips. He backed away from the door, pressing against Kiyah and Carson as if he could shield them from the chamber.

Lydia smiled at her captives and stepped from the platform.

"Welcome to my little research facility" she purred as she strolled toward them. "I know it's not nearly as grand as what you are used to at the SGC or Atlantis, but it is private...and I value privacy." She smiled wider at Rodney's wide-eyed shocked expression.

"Oh come now, Dr. McKay. You don't think I went to all the trouble of bringing you here unless I knew about you. And I do know about you. All of you." Her eyes shifted to Carson and Lydia dropped the smile, her expression that of a satisfied cat contemplating a fat mouse.

"What is all this?" Rodney fought to keep the tremor from his voice. He recognized most of the equipment but had no intention of making Lydia's life easy.

"Oh please, do you really expect me to fall for the ignorant act?" Lydia scowled at him. "I required your assistance with a little research project. You've already started and made some progress."

"And what makes you think I'm going to help you?" He folded his arms across his chest and raised his chin defiantly. The effect was lost when the guards shoved them into the room and he was forced to catch his balance on the countertop or land on his face.

"You will help. You will complete the analysis you've begun. I want to know what these..." Lydia swept a hand over the table, indicating the artifacts "are for. What purpose do they serve? What do they do?"

"And if I can't..."

"Oh but you can. You will. All you need is the proper motivation." Lydia cut him off with a wave of her hand.

Her guards stepped forward and grabbed Carson, propelling him toward the heavy chair and the leather restraints. His breath hitched and Beckett twisted and struggled in their grasp.

"Leave him alone!" Kiyah launched herself at the nearest guard. She managed to land a solid left hook to his cheekbone before he knocked her sprawling on the floor. The oddly shaped weapon he'd threatened them with earlier clicked and powered up and Kiyah's eyes widened at the sight of the zat trained on her. She stayed on the floor, her hands raised in surrender.

"Stop it! Fine, I'll do what you want. Just stop it and leave them alone." Rodney dropped his eyes in defeat.

Carson held his breath as Lydia nodded. "Good. But I warn you; any more trouble, any attempt to escape and life is going to be very unpleasant for your friends." Lydia nodded to the guard who released Carson. The doctor collapsed in relief against the very chair he'd struggled so hard to avoid.

The guards hauled Kiyah to her feet and pinned her against the wall. Lydia stepped up to her. Sneering, she grabbed Kiyah's chin, forcing the shorter woman to look into her eyes. "I have had enough of you. Try anything else and I'll give you to my men. They're bored and not very creative but I'm sure they can invent some clever ways of amusing themselves if you give them a chance. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal." Kiyah spat the word through clenched teeth and glared at her former boss. Lydia nodded, slammed Kiyah's head against the wall and turned to McKay. "Get to work. I expect a progress report in four hours."

She strode from the room the guards following. The weighty door swung shut on well-oiled hinges and the solid thunk of a heavy bolt rammed home told the captives it would remain that way.

"Well, this sucks." Kiyah rubbed the back of her head.

"Oh, you think?" Rodney was back in full snark mode as the gravity of their situation sunk in.

"I'm just saying..."

"Well don't." Rodney looked around the lab. "Why don't you make yourself useful and see what's around here?"

Kiyah frowned and nodded. She explored the lab while McKay settled in at the table with her computer and the stone tablet. He noticed a large magnifier nearby and placed the tablet under the glass. The microscopic symbols jumped at him.

"This is more like it." In spite of the danger, Rodney couldn't help his excitement. Even after years with the SGC and Atlantis, he'd never lost the thrill of discovery when unraveling the secrets of a new piece of Ancient technology. He was engrossed in his work, pausing to make notes of the more obscure symbols etched in the stone. He looked up in surprise when a steaming mug of coffee and a sandwich appeared beside him.

"I found food, water and coffee. Guess she doesn't want us to starve before she gets what she wants." Kiyah put the dishes on the table. "You getting anywhere with that?"

"Working on it." Rodney slurped coffee and stuffed a large bite of ham and cheese in his mouth.

"Do you want..."

"Working." Rodney cut her off with a glare and a wave. "Go away. This is way beyond you."

Kiyah shrugged and turned away. McKay was muttering under his breath and she was sure she heard words like moron and idiot. She flashed him a dark look and sat on one of the hard metal chairs at the opposite end of the table.

"Don't mind him lass. He gets cranky when he's pushed around by bullies." Carson sat slumped in a chair with his head pillowed on his folded arms. He favored her with a tired smile.

"Yeah, I got that. How are you holding up?" Kiyah's concern was evident in her voice. Carson still looked dreadful, his face flushed and dry; his expression conveyed his discomfort as spasms wracked his abdomen.

"I'm ok."

"Sure you are." Kiyah cast an appraising glance over the man leaning against the table. "Look, I know you don't want to talk about it and all and this probably isn't the best time, but what happened?"

"It's ok. After we left the coffee shop, I went for a walk. Somebody must have been following me. They jumped me on the street; injected me with something, a sedative most likely. I woke up once and tried to escape. Didn't get far." Carson sighed. "They knocked me around a fair bit and I woke up in that white room..." he shivered as he recalled the isolation and fear.

Kiyah nodded. "We wondered if it was something like that. I mean, Dr. McKay and Dr. Keller were worried about you. I had to work at the concert and then we went back to my place after. Daniel and I had some things we needed to talk about and then we; me, Dr. Keller and Dr. McKay went out looking for you." She bit her lip and looked away from him. "He was right; we should have looked sooner. Maybe...if we'd gone out looking earlier, we might have...could have...maybe...prevented..."

A warm hand on her arm gave her pause and she looked at Carson. He shook his head, "not your fault. It wouldn't have made a difference; except maybe get more people hurt."

"But it is my fault." Kiyah jumped up from the chair and paced in a tight circle. "I'm the one that pointed you out to that evil witch."

"Not your fault." He repeated slowly, emphasizing each word. "I have an inkling she'd already noticed us and had some suspicions about us before you said anything."

"Dr. McKay did say she'd been in the SGC databases. Wonder what she found that triggered her interest?" Kiyah's tone was casual but she watched Beckett carefully, looking for a non-verbal clue to the mystery.

He shook his head again. Spots swam in his vision and he closed his eyes against the sudden brightness of the light in the lab.

Kiyah laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Hey, don't worry about it. It's not that important."

She was worried; he still wore his I-think-I'm-gonna-puke-my guts-out face. "Here." She shoved a bottle of cool water in his hand. Carson sipped slowly. The water was welcome relief to his parched throat; he just hoped it stayed where it belonged given the fragile state of his stomach.

He offered her a weak smile and laid his head back on the table. Kiyah patted his arm and paced around the lab. Computer keys clattered in the background as Rodney typed furiously. Kiyah watched him from the corner of the room. He had seemed so confident in his abilities to decode the mysteries of the black stone and the headband the previous night. Now that confidence was cloaked with desperation as he studied the tablet, scribbled notes on a notepad or typed more information into the computer file. His eyes darted from artifact to computer screen in a rapid fire dance. His fingers flew over the keyboard and Kiyah was certain she'd never seen anyone type as fast as Rodney McKay.

She looked at Beckett, his body hunched over his arms as he lay sleeping on the table. His position looked anything but comfortable and Kiyah wondered if the man would be able to walk when he woke. She noted the slight tremors that occasionally shook him and frowned. Although he'd absolved her of any culpability, Kiyah still harbored guilt for her role in his capture. "If only I hadn't pointed them out to Lydia; if only I'd listened to Rodney sooner; if only we'd looked sooner, harder, asked more questions." If only ran on a silent continuous playback loop in her mind, fueling the guilt and stoking the anger. "Fucking Lydia, if it's the last thing I do; I'm going to kill that bitch", Kiyah vowed silently.

She sighed loudly and ran her hands through her hair. Rodney scowled at her from across the room before he resumed his assault on the computer. She shrugged and slid down the wall until she was seated on the floor with her back braced against the hard cold surface. She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her ankles. Kiyah propped her chin on her knees, closed her eyes and waited. She figured they still had a couple of hours before Lydia returned. She just hoped that Rodney made enough progress on his analysis to buy the rest of them a little more time.

"Good luck McKay. I think we're all gonna need it." She sighed again and settled in for the long haul.

۞۞۞


	19. The Hitter

**Chapter 19**

**The Hitter**

Jennifer laid on the couch in Kiyah's living room. Her head throbbed with every heartbeat and her face ached where Lydia's hired goon struck her. Daniel had found some aspirin in Kiyah's kitchen and even though she'd doubled the dose, the medication did little to relieve the pain. They were quiet, each lost in their thoughts regarding the whereabouts of their friends and the fire at Caffiends.

Daniel considered the events of the last few months as he carefully teased a pattern from the seemingly random events. Kiyah finds the pictograph in a remote southern Utah canyon and asks him about it. Jerry vanishes into thin air. Lydia appears from the same ether. He and Kiyah return to the canyon and find more pictographs and the mother lode: the silvery box. Ben Lightning Horse's family sends Kiyah a crystal that provides the key to opening the box. Had Ben known all along the box was there? Had his family somehow been tasked with the guardianship of the artifact? If so why had Daniel been allowed to take it? And why send the crystal to Kiyah?

Daniel wondered if there was more to Kiyah and Ben's relationship than a simple translation of stories. He knew she'd worked for several months with Ben, translating oral histories and preserving stories for posterity. The Elders project caught the attention of the SGC when stories emerged that discussed the appearance of 'ghost light dancers'. According to several of the stories, the ghost light dancers appeared to the people of southern Utah as flesh and blood humans but turned to pillars of light rising from the desert floor to join with the stars.

Daniel was certain the stories referred to the Ancients and ascension but it wasn't until the discovery of a small Ancient outpost in a forgotten dusty corner of northern Arizona that hard evidence was available. He'd researched the outpost and the few artifacts it contained and concluded that while Ancient in origin, anything of value had long been lost to the desert wilderness and pot hunters. The stories and artifacts were cataloged and the researchers and translators re-assigned to new projects.

He recalled Kiyah as she was then, before her departure from the SGC. He hadn't worked much with her then but on the rare occasions they collaborated he'd found her a quick study when it came to obscure languages. He frowned, remembering the off-world incident that had left seven members of a research team dead and had ultimately driven Kiyah from the program. He vaguely recalled the healing ceremony she'd alluded to last night. Ben Lightning Horse performed it and Daniel wondered he'd learned something about Kiyah during that time.

If Ben had known about the headband in the box and the crystal, maybe he'd discovered its purpose. And maybe he'd discovered that Kiyah possessed the genetic abilities to activate the device. Daniel had little doubt that Kiyah could use the headband. He just wondered what it was used for. Whatever was going on, Kiyah was heavily if reluctantly involved.

He prowled the kitchen for a snack and emerged several minutes later with sliced apples, cheese and a tall glass of cold orange juice. He glanced at Jennifer asleep on the couch. The young doctor was restless, her hands clenched the blanket tightly under her chin and frown lines creased her forehead. Whatever she was dreaming, Daniel suspected it was way less than pleasant. His moody introspection was interrupted by a sharp rap on the door.

Daniel left the plate on the coffee table and opened the door. Twins suits holding twin badges greeted him at the threshold. Police. Daniel smiled and invited them in.

۞۞۞

Rodney studied the artifact with a furious intensity. The tiny markings were unlike any language he'd ever seen. Some of the symbols were definitely Ancient, but the others...

"Dammit!" He slapped his hands on the countertop. Kiyah bounced off the floor like a jack-in-the-box with a tightly wound spring. Carson remained asleep on the table. His lack of motion betrayed the depth of his exhaustion and Rodney was grateful that if nothing else, his friend at least got some decent rest.

"What?" Kiyah wandered stiffly across the lab and stood beside McKay, stretching and popping her spine.

"This...this...language.." He glared at her. "It's not really a language at all, more a conglomeration of words and pictures. The words make sense...but this other stuff. It's gibberish." He huffed, frustrated with his effort and lack of progress.

Kiyah leaned over his shoulder for a closer look at his work. She noticed the coffee was consumed, but with the exception of a single large bite, the sandwich lay forgotten on the counter. "How much time..." she started.

He cut her off before the question was fully formed. "Not enough. That Ice Queen psychobitch is gonna be back...soon...and I've barely made a dent in this." Rodney ran a hand through his already frazzled hair.

Kiyah leaned over his shoulder again, ignoring his annoyed glare. "You've made some progress; I mean, it's further along than it was."

"Yes, yes, yes...I've made some progress, but not nearly enough."

They both startled at the sound of the bolt unlocking the door.

"That is unfortunate, Dr. McKay", Lydia's silky voice cut through the tension in the room. "With your reputation, I expected better."

"I'm doing my best...but, but, but these things take time and this isn't the most ideal setting and..." his voice trailed off as she approached him.

"And?"

"And I may not be able to figure it out; not without seeing where it came from."

"And that makes a difference, how?" Lydia cornered McKay against the intersection of two lab benches and he pressed against the hard steel and polymer composite cabinets, leaning as far from her as he could.

"It...uh...it..." he swallowed against the dry constriction in his throat and tried again. "It appears, from what I've translated, that the headband was used for a couple of different things. It was used to help heal people who suffered severe psychological or mental trauma. It was also used to help some people put aside their mental barriers to ascencion. I mean, I think that's what it's for but I won't know if I don't finish the translation and I can't finish the translation if I can't access the full database in the outpost where this was found."

"So you're saying you can't do the anaysis. That is unfortunate." Lydia's ice-grey eyes shifted and rested on Carson. "Dr. Beckett does seem comfortable. It will be a shame to disturb his rest. He obviously needs it."

Lydia backed away from Rodney and nodded to the guards by the door. They advanced on the sleeping man. Kiyah snatched up the nearest folding metal chair in a fair imitation of a World Wrestling Federation contestant.

"Don't you dare!" She brandished the chair at the guards. They traded amused grins and continued their advance. Kiyah never played baseball as a kid. She had preffered horses and like most western states country kids had grown up with her legs wrapped around the ribs of a sturdy mount. She knew nothing about bats, grip and angles. What she lacked in skill she compensated with enthusiasm. Kiayh swung the makeshift weapon with all her strength, straight into the nearest guard's face.

Rodney cringed as the guard dropped to the floor. Blood squirted through the hand he wrapped around his gushing nose and muffled the groaning curses he snarled at the barista. Lydia stopped in her tracks, momentarily stunned. She expected her captives to remain compliant. The loud clang and thud of the guard hitting the floor brought Carson from a sound sleep to fight or flight in the span of a heartbeat.

His confusion lasted an eye-blink before he chose the nearest exit and dived under the table just out of the second guard's reach. Beckett scrambled under the table to the far side of the lab and took stock of the situation. Kiyah danced around the remaining guard waving the chair like a lion tamer while Lydia and Rodney stood open-mouthed with shock. Lydia recovered first and produced a small but deadly Baretta 9mm from her pocket. She fired a single shot over Kiyah's head.

Kiyah jumped but refused to loosen her grip on the chair.

"That's quite enough of that. Put it down."

Kiyah studied Lydia briefly. The business end of the gun swung around on Carson. He held his breath, waiting for the shot. He jerked when a loud bang echoed through the room. He conducted a quick pat-down; he wasn't sporting new holes or leaking blood. Kiyah stood still, her hands empty as the echo faded away.

"Much better." Lydia jerked her head at the guard. He yanked Kiyah off her feet and dragged her to the heavy chair on the platform. Kiyah offered no resistance; the gun was still pointing at her companions and she had no doubt that Lydia wouldn't hesitate to add to Carson's misery.

"It appears Dr. McKay needs a little incentive to complete his task. It also appears that you've volunteered to provide that incentive." Lydia approached the woman restrained in the chair. "I'm going to enjoy this."

Lydia pulled a syringe from her pocket and rammed the needle deep into Kiyah's shoulder. Kiyah bit her lip and held back a cry of pain. Disappointment flashed in Lydia's eyes at the lack of response before her lips curved in a smug smile. She patted Kiyah on the head as if she were a favorite pet. "That's fine. You'll scream soon enough." She looked at Beckett pressed against the wall and smiled again. "They all do."

Lydia stepped to McKay, her eyes cold. "Get busy. Menomonee just bought you four more hours."

Lydia walked out the door. The guards followed, one staggering and leaning on his companion. The heavy thump of the bolt slammed home sounded like a death knell.

Rodney looked at Kiyah and Carson. "We are so screwed."

۞۞۞


	20. State Trooper

**A/N: **Yes, finally, an update. To all of you who have marked this story as favorite, have reviewed it, have read it without leaving a review, or are following it, my sincerest apologies for letting it linger for so long. The past months (years) have been a struggle for survival and I have learned that depression and writing don't make good bedfellows. I've climbed out of that black hole into the sunshine again. I'm picking up the reins and here we go again. For all of you who have stuck with me to this point, thank you. Its not enough, not nearly, but its all I have, so thank you and enjoy this latest installment.

**Chapter 20**

**State Trooper**

"I'm Detective Benson; this is my partner Detective Sanders. We're investigating a fire at a local coffee shop. Do you mind answering a few questions?" Detective Benson greeted Daniel at the door to Kiyah's apartment.

"Not at all, detective." Daniel stepped aside, granting the officers entry to Kiyah's apartment. "Please, have a seat."

"We are looking for a Ms. Kiyah Menomonee. Is she here?"

"No. She went out earlier and asked me to meet her here later."

"And you are?"

"Dr. Daniel Jackson and that is Dr. Jennifer Keller." Daniel figured the use of titles in his introductions could open more doors than names alone.

"Dr. Jackson. Dr. Keller." Detective Benson nodded at Jennifer as she moved from the couch. "That's quite a shiner you've got there, doctor. How'd you get it?"

"Car accident." Jennifer replied as she stepped into the kitchen. "If you'll excuse me for a minute, I'll make us some coffee."

"Certainly. Dr. Jackson you said that Ms. Menomonee left earlier today. Do you know what time she left, where she went?"

Daniel thought it over for a minute before answering. "I think she left around 10:00 or so. She didn't really say where she was going but I'd guess she was headed for groceries, coffee that sort of thing. We've been working together lately and she mentioned something about restocking supplies for today's meeting." The half-truth rolled off Daniel's tongue smoothly.

"Working on what?" Detective Benson scribbled notes in a small notebook. Detective Sanders leaned against the wall by the door. He looked bored but Daniel noticed his eyes tracking around the living room and doubted the man missed much. Daniel shifted on the couch. He wondered if someone had turned up the thermostat.

"I'm an archeologist. She was helping me with some translations of pictographs from a southern Utah canyon."

"When Ms. Menomonee left, was she alone?"

"No. She was with a friend of ours, Dr. Rodney McKay." Jennifer picked up the narration as she entered the living room bearing a tray with mugs, coffee, milk and sugar. Detective Sanders pushed off the wall and helped her with the heavy tray. He settled it on the coffee table and waited while Jennifer distributed mugs and beverages. Sanders resumed his post holding up the wall and watched Jennifer re-settle herself on the couch.

"Is there any reason Dr. McKay would have gone with her?"

"He has some peculiar food allergies." Jennifer smiled and winced as the motion aggravated the puffy tender bruise on her face. "He wanted to make sure there were things that were safe for him to eat."

"I see. When was the last time you saw either one of them?"

Daniel scratched his nose. "Well, that was the last time we saw them. We haven't heard from them in a while." Daniel waited, content to let the silence stretch. He was curious who would break it first.

"Long shopping trip." Detective Sanders spoke up as he made a show of checking his watch. "They been shopping for groceries, what, seven hours now?"

Daniel and Jennifer traded a look. Neither of them realized how long Rodney and Kiyah had been gone. Daniel sipped his coffee, set the mug back on the table and cleared his throat.

"You never mentioned why you are looking for Kiyah" he ventured.

"No I didn't" Detective Benson studied the doctors sitting on the couch. He shifted slightly in his chair as something tightened in his gut. Though these people claimed friendship and seemed familiar with the apartment, the stirring butterflies told him there was something more to the story.

"Ms. Menomonee works at Caffiends, right?" At Daniel's nod Benson continued, "How does she get along with her coworkers? Any friction, any contention with Jillian Roberts or Timothy Highsmith?"

"None. They all get along really well. Kiyah's worked for Caffiends about five years now. Jill and Tim have been there forever. They're all friends." Daniel confirmed. "Why are you asking about Jill and Tim?"

The detectives traded a look of their own. The room stilled and Jennifer was certain she could taste the tension in the air. It tasted of something burnt and bitter and she frowned at the coffee mug she clutched tightly. She took a slow measured sip of the coffee and forced her hands to relax.

"The remains of Ms. Roberts and Mr. Highsmith were found in what's left of Caffiends." Detective Benson stated in his officer-with-bad-news voice. Detective Sanders watched Jennifer and Daniel. He didn't miss the sharp inhale or the sudden slump of shoulders from the doctors.

"You were expecting something else?" Sanders asked quietly. Daniel and Jennifer traded another quick glance and Benson felt tiny wings flutter in his gut.

"It's just..." Jennifer's voice trailed off as she remembered the friendly people she'd met the day before.

"It's just that I saw the fire when I was on my way over here", Jackson picked up the narration. "I mentioned it to Jennifer and since Rodney and Kiyah are so late and we haven't heard from them..." He shrugged. "We assumed the worst when you mentioned the fire."

"I see." Detective Benson added several notes to his little book. Sanders never looked away from the pair seated on the couch. The room grew warmer and the back of Daniel's shirt clung to the clammy dampness against his skin.

"Dr. Keller, you mentioned you got that black eye in a car accident. There haven't been any accidents reported in Colorado Springs today. There was a report of a road rage incident between a Jeep and a Chevy Suburban around 11:30 this morning. You wouldn't know anything about that?"

Jennifer shook her head. "No. My accident happened yesterday...in California. I've been with Daniel, most of the day, waiting for Kiyah."

The detectives exchanged another glance and although she didn't know how, Jennifer realized she'd just stepped in a big steaming pile of crap. Daniel shifted on the couch, fighting the urge to rub at the wetness trickling an itchy trail between his shoulders. Benson scribbled in his book and ignored the butterflies flying in formation. Sanders studied the doctors like specimens pinned to a tray.

"So Ms. Menomonee and Dr. McKay left here around 10 this morning and you haven't heard from them since?"

"Yes, that's right."

"There anything going on between the two of them? Besides the grocery shopping."

"No. They just met yesterday." Jennifer stopped when the detectives traded another look. The pile at her feet was deeper and she feared if she spoke again she'd tumble headfirst into it.

Benson wrote another note in his book. "Dr. Jackson, what time did you say you arrived here?"

"About an hour ago."

"And you said Ms. Menomonee left around 10?"

"Yeah, she called me to let me know she was going out and to let myself in if she wasn't here."

"So you have a key then?"

"Yes."

"And your relationship with Ms. Menomonee would be..."

"Strictly professional. We worked together a few years ago. I see her around town. We started working together again when she brought me that photo of the pictographs."

"Why would she bring this photo to you?"

"Like I said, we used to work together. Kiyah didn't recognize some of the symbols and she wondered if I did. More of a curiosity thing than anything. You'd have to ask her about it if you want more information." Daniel's voice was steady and mellow but his fingers fidgeting with the coffee mug betrayed his nerves.

"I'd like to talk to Ms. Menomonee, but she doesn't seem to be available." Benson arched an eyebrow at the doctors squirming silently on the couch. He flipped a page in his notebook.

"Dr. Keller, what time did you get here?"

"I was already here."

Sanders narrowed his eyes; he stared at her as if he could see inside her mind. Jennifer picked up a pillow and hugged it against her lap.

"You were already here? When Dr. Jackson arrived or before then?"

"Before."

"You mentioned you were involved in a car accident in California. When did you get into Colorado?"

"Yesterday. We got into town a little before lunch, met up with Daniel."

"We?"

"Dr. McKay was with me."

"And your relationship with Dr. McKay?"

"We're work colleagues."

"I see. And how did you come to be in Ms. Menomonee's apartment?"

Jennifer traded the pillow for her coffee. She sipped her coffee and set the cup on the table before she answered. "We met Kiyah yesterday when Daniel took us to Caffiends. We started talking and she invited us over." Jennifer shrugged. "She was friendly and Rodney was curious about the project she's helping Daniel with."

"She invited them to take a look at the translations I was working on." Daniel picked up the story. "We've run into some snags and I thought maybe fresh eyes would give us a new direction."

Detective Benson nodded and scribbled in his notebook. He flipped a page, read it, frowned and flipped the page back. He closed the notebook and clicked his pen shut. He stashed both in his jacket pocket.

"I think we're done for now. When they turn up, do us a favor and give us a call. We really need to talk to her."

"You don't think she had something to do with the fire..." Jennifer shook her head. "She wouldn't..."

"Just have her call us. I can be reached at that cell number anytime." Detective Benson handed each of them a business card with his contact information printed on smooth, heavy cream-colored stock. "Thank you for your time."

The detectives headed for the door when Benson turned to Keller. "And doctor, if you'd like to tell me what really happened to your face; just give me a call."

He walked out the door and Daniel leaned against it and released the breath he didn't realize he was holding.

* * *

On the other side of the door, the detectives traded notes.

"They're hiding something."

"Definitely." Sanders rubbed a hand over his bristly crew cut. "They damn near fainted when you told them it was Roberts and Highsmith in that burned-out shell."

"Yeah it's almost as if they were expecting it to be someone else."

"The time's off. Jackson mentioned he spotted the fire when he was on his way over here, but Keller said she'd spent most of the day with him, waiting for Kiyah. Neither of them said anything about going out."

"Her story about a car accident doesn't really add up either. That bruise is no more than eight hours old, if that." Benson pulled his notebook from his pocket and scribbled another line. He flipped the pages scanning the notes he'd taken during the interview. He frowned before tucking it into his jacket. "And I've yet to see a car that has knuckles."

"No kidding." Sanders nodded. "And what's more, I think they were both at the scene. Come on. We got some photos to look at. If we can place them there, I have more questions for the good doctors." Their voices faded as they headed down the stairs.

* * *

Jennifer let the breath she'd been holding flow as she sagged on the couch. _Not Rodney. Not Kiyah. Not them._ The phrase repeated in her head like a tape recorder. She wept with relief for her friends and sorrow for the two in the coffee shop. She hadn't had much interaction with Jill or Tim but they'd seemed like nice people. She glanced at Daniel. He had the slightly shell-shocked look of someone who had just been granted a stay of execution.

"It wasn't them." His voice was so soft, Jennifer almost missed it.

"No it wasn't. So, where are they?"

"Don't know. But I'd bet their disappearance has something to do with that road rage incident the detective mentioned." Daniel rubbed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. "Kiyah drives a green Jeep."

"And Lydia drives a Suburban?"

Daniel shook his head. "I don't know, but it would be easy enough to find out. It wouldn't surprise me. Dark truck, tinted windows, it's the perfect vehicle for transporting things or people you don't want seen."

"So Lydia has them?"

"Maybe. Look, you said they were going to take a look at her computer, right?"

"Yes. After I told Rodney about the pictures, he was pretty insistent that he check out Lydia's computer. Kiyah said she could get them into the office and she said that Lydia usually doesn't work on Saturdays. But they've been gone a long time..."

"I know. They must have found something and they've either been caught or they're hiding, waiting until it's safe to contact us."

"So what do we do?" Jennifer ran her hands through her hair.

"The same thing we've been doing all day. We wait. McKay's a genius and Kiyah's a survivor. Between the two of them, they'll figure out a way to get in touch with us." Daniel picked up his mug and swallowed a healthy swig of the now cold coffee. It was stale and bitter but he drank it without complaint.

Jennifer sat on the couch, her arms folded and a contemplative look on her face.

"We've been waiting a long time. I think it's safe to assume the worst, that they're in trouble. If they've been caught, I doubt they'll be able to contact us." Jennifer helped herself to a chunk of cheese from Daniel's plate.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I know. We know Lydia's not keeping them at Caffiends; but what else is there?"

"I don't know Lydia, not like you and Kiyah do, but I'm betting that fire wasn't an accident or a coincidence. If Lydia does have them, she's bound to figure out that we're looking for them. What if she had the fire started to throw us off the trail?"

"It's possible. In fact, I'd say it's likely." Daniel drained the last of the stale coffee from his mug and put it on the table. He paced a short path around the living room, his forehead crinkled in thought before he turned back to the doctor seated on the couch.

"And there is something that's been bothering me since I found you in the closet."

"What?"

"You said the guy that broke in never said a word; he hit you and headed straight to the table and cleared it off, like he knew what he was looking for."

"Yes, that's right."

"Then I believe it's safe to assume Kiyah was right and Lydia is involved in this up to her sneaky grey eyeballs."

"So if we can figure out what that artifact is; we can figure out what Lydia's up to..." Jennifer chewed at her lip, her eyes narrowed as she considered Lydia's motives.

"Then we might be able to figure out where she's keeping them." Daniel concluded.

"Ok. So we have a bunch of puzzle pieces and no idea how many are missing or what the picture on the box looks like. How does that help us?"

"It gives us a starting point. Lydia showed up at Caffiends shortly after Kiyah found the first rock art panel. She started asking questions about me not long after we found that silver box. Somehow, she's figured out something important about that artifact."

"How? I mean, she hasn't really talked to you and I don't see Kiyah giving her any information. You don't suppose Jill or Tim told her anything?"

"No." Daniel shook his head. "Kiyah can't stand Lydia and Jill and Tim follow...followed Kiyah's lead. I don't see any of them working with her."

"Then the only other way she could have gotten her information is from someone inside the SGC or by hacking into the SGC databases."

"It has to be. She doesn't really fit in around here and she doesn't seem to have a lot of friends."

"And it explains Carson. Kiyah said she took pictures of us and Rodney was certain that she'd store them on a computer. If she did hack into the SGC databases, then she knows everything, and I mean everything, about us."

"Including Dr. Beckett's condition..."

"Especially Carson's condition." Jennifer frowned as she speculated on Lydia's interest in Beckett's medical history. "If she knows he's..." her voice trailed off as she studied Daniel.

"If she knows he's a clone, then she's up to some very bad business. I'm not sure what her interest is, but I'm willing to bet she's working for somebody else."

"Probably. And if that's the case then we need to find him and soon. He's stable right now, but he needs weekly treatments and he's still recovering. If his body is stressed too much, the treatments might not last a full seven days." Jennifer stared into her empty coffee mug as if held all the answers to her questions. She leaned forward and set the mug on the table.

"Ok, let's assume Lydia has Carson. Rodney and Kiyah figured it out and Lydia caught them. The police mentioned a road rage incident that happened not long after they left here and with the description of the vehicles, Kiyah was probably involved."

Daniel nodded. "So Lydia has them and she has the artifacts and the research. You said McKay was working on translating that stone tablet. How far did he get?"

"Not very far I think. But if I know Rodney, he'll keep trying; especially if someone else's life is at stake. He'd work with Lydia until he figured out a way to escape or to contact us…and he won't leave Carson or Kiyah behind."

"Right. So let's assume Rodney's working with Lydia and trying to figure out how to get them all away from her. Lydia's smart; she's not going to be easy to fool."

"But Rodney's smarter." Jennifer smiled; the physicist would be the first to acknowledge that fact. "If she's keeping them locked up somewhere, he'll figure out a way to get out. Either talk her into letting them go or getting the upper hand somehow...maybe even relocating wherever she's got them."

Jennifer glanced at Daniel. The archeologist wore a thoughtful expression. "If he did that, then we might just have a chance of finding them."

"Where?" Jennifer tilted her head at the smiling man.

"Back to the beginning, where this all started."

"And that would be?"

"Dr. Keller...Jennifer...how do you feel about a little road trip?"

**A/N:** And no, I swear it won't be forever before I update this again.


	21. Tougher Than the Rest

**A/N: WARNING! This chapter contains strong language. **

**Tougher Than the Rest**

Kiyah chanted a litany of filthy swear words as the effects of the drug took hold. Heat burned through her shoulders and chest, gripping her with a blistering steel band. She gritted her teeth until Rodney thought they'd break from the strain. She bucked against the leather straps holding her in the chair and her tears flowed in silvery rivers over her flushed cheeks.

"Rodney, help me. We've got to get her out of there." Carson's voice cut through McKay's paralysis.

Carson pulled at the buckles, releasing the tight leather bonds. He winced in sympathy at the deep red marks around Kiyah's wrists. They were going to blossom into some impressive bruises in a few hours.

"Fucking bitch you bitch I'm going to fucking kill you I won't scream I won't you bitch" Kiyah curled on her side and swore with greater intensity. Rodney was impressed with the creative combinations of curses aimed at Lydia.

Carson stroked her hair back from her forehead, providing what comfort he could. "Easy lass, easy. I know. I know. We've got you. It's going to be ok."

"Fucking hurts. Dammit! I hate that bitch!"

"I know it hurts, lass, I know." Carson met Rodney's wide frightened eyes as he cared for the woman curled on the floor.

"God Carson..." McKay licked his lips and swallowed hard against a tight dry throat. "Is that...that's not...it's what she did...did...to you?"

"I don't know for sure. We'll know more if the hallucinations start."

"Hallucinations?" Rodney practically choked on the word.

"Aye. There's no way to know for certain if it's the same thing she gave me. It seems like it, but she told me the serum she gave me had several constituents to it. This drug may not have all the same components."

"God Carson, I'm sorry..." Guilt laced McKay's voice and he looked away.

"Don't. Rodney, you didn't know; no one did. If you want to blame somebody, blame Lydia. She's the one that put us here. I'm not certain this is the same drug Lydia gave me. This one seems to cause intense pain. I think the one she gave me was designed to wear me down; force me into tellin' her things."

"How can you be sure?"

"I can't. But she seems calmer" Beckett glanced at Kiyah. She laid still; her hands clenching in rhythm with the spasms that coursed through her muscles. "The drug Lydia gave me burned like fire. I don't know how long it lasted, but there were other effects. Delirium, hallucinations, extreme thirst, racing heart, sensitivity to light. They seemed to last a long time."

Carson's voice was soft as he described his ordeal. Rodney's vivid imagination helpfully supplied the mental photographs to fill in the blanks where Carson's words faltered. He rubbed a shaky hand through his hair.

"We've got to get out of here."

"Aye and the sooner the better."

Rodney looked at the bench and the artifact awaiting his attention. "I better uh...get back..." He waved in the general direction of his work station.

Carson nodded. "I'll look after her."

"Fucking bitch!" Kiyah's whispered fervent cursing captured their attention. "I won't scream you bitch. I won't."

"Aye, lass. I completely believe that."

Rodney straightened from his spot on the floor and headed for the workbench. Four hours was not a lot of time, but he thought it just might be enough to devise an escape plan. He picked up the headband and turned it in his hands. His mind shifted into overdrive as he considered the possibilities. If he could just convince Lydia that he needed to see the area where the headband was found, he had no doubt they could attempt an escape. He looked at his notes and Kiyah's map. And deep in the corner of his mind, a tiny idea sparked and flickered. He smiled grimly and got to work. He had a lot to do before he could put his plan into action.

* * *

Two frustrating hours later, McKay pushed away from the workbench. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. He frowned at the grit in his eyes and the prickle of day old beard stubble. He'd been in such a hurry to get a look at Lydia's computer; he'd skipped the morning shower and shave. He knew he looked like he'd just crawled out of a dumpster; probably smelled like it too.

"How's it going?" Carson's soft voice cut through his quiet musings.

Beckett was sitting on the floor next to Kiyah, his fingers wrapped around her wrist as he monitored her pulse. He wasn't wearing a watch and Rodney suspected the gesture was as much a comfort for him as it was for her. The barista had stopped swearing over an hour ago. She lay on her side, curled in a ball and Rodney watched as tremors shook her body.

"Not so good. I really need to know if there was some kind of outpost where they found that thing." Rodney turned the headband over in his hands. "There's not much more I can do without more data and I don't think what I have is going to be enough to keep Psycho Bitch Barbie happy."

"Aye." Carson nodded. "What does it do?"

"Several things. The Ancients apparently used it to treat mental trauma. The injured person wore the headband. The headband projected the memories of the event through an interface device. The interface displayed the memories to the therapist who then relayed them back to the injured person; kinda like a guided meditation."

Rodney paused while Carson processed the information. "So this thing can be used to heal brain trauma, amnesia, that sort of thing?" Beckett stared at the headband as he considered its potential as a healing device.

"Something like that. But we don't have the interface device and without that, there's no way to really know for sure. There are some notes that the headband was also used to lead candidates for Ascension through a series of guided meditations." He frowned and rubbed his face again. "Again, I just don't have enough information to say for sure. And then there are all those weird little symbols, more like pictures than actual words. Without a point of reference, there's no way to know what they mean or even if they mean anything at all."

"They do." Kiyah whispered from the floor.

"They do what? What are you talking about?" Rodney shot Carson a concerned look as he crouched next to the woman on the floor.

"The weird little symbols. They do have meaning." Kiyah pushed herself up until she was half-sitting, half-leaning against Carson. The doctor tightened his grip on her arm to keep her from toppling over.

"Easy lass. You've had quite a time of it." Beckett cautioned.

"I'm ok. Whatever that bitch gave me seems to be wearing off. Help me up."

"I don't think that's a very good idea. You need to rest..." Even in his weakened state, Carson's bossy I'm-the-doctor persona took center stage.

"Later. Help me up. I need to see McKay's weird little symbols."

"Well, they're not mine..." McKay trailed off at the crooked grin aimed his way. He held out his hand and helped Kiyah haul herself off the floor. She swayed, alarming Beckett who moved into catch position, but remained more or less vertical as she staggered to the workbench.

McKay had sketched several of the symbols on a notepad. He'd annotated the frequency of each symbol next to the sketches. Kiyah leaned on the bench and studied the symbols. Lines etched her forehead as she frowned. Her skin was pale under her tan, giving her a sallow sickly-yellow appearance, almost like jaundice. Rodney wondered again what had been in the syringe Lydia had so enthusiastically administered.

"These are the same symbols we found in the canyon. They're Anasazi." Kiyah tapped the notepad while Beckett and McKay crowded in for a closer look. They all pretended not to notice the shaking in her hand.

"So, that helps us...how?"

"It helps us because now we know the Anasazi were involved in this Ascension thing you were talking about. And it strengthens your argument for going back to the canyon where we found this."

"Yeah, like she's going to let us go back there." Rodney frowned. "Are you sure there wasn't a...a...structure or a building or something, anything that could have housed technology. It might have been underground."

"I didn't notice anything but that doesn't mean it's not there. We were so excited about the box that we didn't do a lot of exploring."

"So something could be there. Rodney, what are you thinking?" Carson's eyes shifted from the notepad to his friend's face and back.

"If there is an outpost; it's most likely hidden or cloaked or something. We've seen that before." McKay tapped the notepad. "You and Jackson didn't think to look for it. You didn't have any way of detecting energy signals did you?"

Kiyah shook her head, wincing at the spike of pain that lanced through her brain. "No. We found the box, mostly by accident. Daniel spotted the granary on the cliff and I climbed up there to check it out. Once I saw what was inside..." She shrugged.

"I'd bet anything there's an outpost there." Rodney leaned against the counter, his arms folded across his chest. "There has to be. That..." he nodded at the stone tablet "is quite clear that there is some sort of interface that works with the headband. There was nothing else in the box."

"And the box only opened when I unwrapped the crystal and held it." Kiyah frowned as she recalled that moment. "I think you're right. I think there is more. I'm just not sure where to look."

"Which is why we need to go back to where you found the box. I can take the scanner; do a more thorough search of the area. If there is anything there, I'll find it."

"That's gonna be a lot easier said than done. That canyon is a long way from here, well from Colorado Springs anyway and once we hit the trailhead, it's a rough fifteen mile hike through slickrock desert."

"We can't drive?"

"No..." Kiyah shook her head again, frowning at the headache settled behind her eyes. "There's no road and the canyon gets really narrow at several points along the trail. You can get back there on horses, but its tough going."

"Great." Rodney pinched the bridge of his nose. He was not looking forward to either a grueling hike or an ass-numbing horseback ride.

"And this is assumin' that ravin' lunatic is gonna let us go at all." Carson pointed out the obvious.

"If she wants to know everything about that artifact, then yes, she has to let us go."

"She will."

"And how do you know that?" Rodney frowned at Kiyah, unconvinced by her quiet conviction.

"Because this symbol..." she ran her finger down the page and tapped it over the most common symbol. "This one here usually means shelter or shrine. It can also mean welcoming or gathering, but it is usually associated with some sort of shelter."

"And a shelter means a structure." Rodney nodded, his mind leaping ahead and connecting dots.

Kiyah leaned against the bench, her eyes closed. She looked like she'd fallen asleep on her feet and Carson worried that she'd collapse. He stepped closer to her side, ready to catch her if she fell. His hand snagged the drawstring of the leather pouch as he passed, knocking it off the bench.

"Damn Carson. Be careful. If you break that I don't know what will happen." Rodney bent and retrieved the bundle from the floor.

"What is that?" Carson moved in for a closer look as McKay unwrapped the crystal and inspected it for damage.

"It's some kind of control crystal. Kiyah activated it last night. Its how we got the box opened." Rodney turned the crystal, studying its facets. He frowned at it, annoyed that it refused to respond to him. He looked at Carson. "Here, I need you to hold it."

"Why?"

"Because Kiyah made it glow and I can't. I don't know if it imprinted to her or if it only responds to a natural gene carrier. If it glows for you, then I have my answer."

Carson nodded and stretched his hand out to the crystal. He hesitated, looking at Rodney and Kiyah. "You mean she's got..."

"Yes, she's got the damned gene. How do you think she made that thing light up?" Rodney snarked. "And I need you to hold it so I can check its response."

He laid the crystal on the notepad and picked up the Ancient scanner. The little device glowed a cheerful blue in his hand and he appreciated the gene therapy that allowed him access to the inner workings of the Ancient's world.

"Well, you waiting for an invitation?"

Carson scowled at him and picked up the crystal. It glowed slightly, brighter than when Rodney held it but not nearly as brightly as it had for Kiyah the night before. McKay frowned and scanned the crystal. The energy signature increased but it wasn't giving McKay the answers he wanted. Kiyah sighed softly and lost her balance, falling against Carson. Bright blue light flared from the crystal as if an internal switch had been flipped on.

"Well now, that's different." Carson eased Kiyah to the floor, the crystal secure in his grip.

"Wait, that's what it did last night, almost." Rodney studied the screen of the scanner in his hand. "When you touched her, the energy output increased by a huge margin. It's still not as bright as it was when she held it last night. Give her the crystal."

"Rodney, she's in no shape to be experimentin' with this."

"Just put it in her hand, Carson. I need to check something out."

Carson put the crystal in Kiyah's palm. It flared; brilliant cobalt light flooded the room. Beckett squinted sensitive eyes against the brightness.

"Yes, yes, yes. That's it. Good." Rodney studied the scanner, his voice bright with excitement. "You can take it back now."

Carson took the crystal from Kiyah's hand and handed it to McKay. Kiyah blinked bleary eyes at the doctors.

"What happened?" She rubbed her hand over her face as if to wash away the fatigue and the headache residing behind her temples.

"You fainted." Rodney smirked.

"Did not." She snarked back. "I lost my balance and fell on my ass."

Carson chuckled at the petulant expression on her face. "We were checkin' out that crystal and you fell into me. Rodney wanted ye to hold it so I put it into yer hand..." He trailed off, his brow furrowed in concern. "It didnae hurt ye did it?"

"No." Kiyah frowned. "I already have a headache thanks to Lydia and whatever shit she injected me with." Kiyah rubbed her forehead and pinched the bridge of her nose as if that action could stem the flood of pain behind her eyes.

"Did it light up for you?"

"What?" Beckett gave her a confused look.

"The crystal, did it light up for you?"

"Aye, it did. But not as bright as it did when you touched it."

"Of course it didn't." Kiyah glared at the crystal lying dull and dormant on the counter.

Rodney looked up from his scanner, frowned and pointed it at Kiyah. He tapped it, changed screens and compared readings.

"That necklace. Are you still wearing it?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Take it off a minute."

"Why?"

"I have a theory. Just take it off."

Kiyah shrugged and slipped the chain over her head. She handed the pendant to Carson.

"Here, hold this." Rodney thrust the crystal at Kiyah. She recoiled from it as if he were offering a hissing cobra.

"Just take the damned thing already."

"Rodney..." Carson's voice held a note of warning.

"Fine!" Carson grinned. Kiyah managed to inject as much snark and negativity into that single word as he'd ever heard from McKay. Kiyah wrapped her hand around the crystal and closed her eyes. The crystal glowed with the same radiance as when Carson handled it.

"Uh huh. Carson, your turn. Put that thing on" Rodney waved at the pendant "and hold the crystal."

"What are ye thinkin'?"

"Just do it."

Carson sighed but followed the simple request. He was startled by the brilliant blue flare and closed his eyes against the brightness.

"Well that answers that." Rodney put the scanner back on the table and turned back to the computer.

"What?" Kiyah's query drifted from the floor. Rodney glanced down. He'd forgotten she was still sitting down there.

"Two things. First, the crystal can only be initialized by a natural gene carrier." He frowned as if insulted by the crystal's lack of response to his artificially expressed gene. "Second, that pendant acts as some sort of amplifier."

"Amplifier?" Carson leaned in for a look at Rodney's notes.

"Yes. The crystal is activated by the ATA gene. The pendant seems to focus the energy from the crystal somehow, magnifies it or attunes it to the proper frequency. I'm not sure. But that's not all; look at these energy patterns." Rodney turned the screen towards Carson.

"See here, these are the same patterns I detected last night, before she..." he waved at Kiyah, "activated the crystal. Jennifer said they looked like brain wave patterns but slightly off."

"She's right. They are like brainwave patterns. This one here..." Carson traced the pattern with his finger, "this is almost identical to alpha waves in normal humans. This one is very similar to theta waves produced during states of deep meditation."

Carson studied the screen for a moment. "This one is an amalgamation of the two."

"And that means what exactly?" Rodney's eyes shifted from the screen to the physician and back.

"I have absolutely no idea. But I agree that there is definitely something there. I think you're right. I don't think we have enough information here to do more than speculate on that thing's purpose." Beckett nodded as he considered McKay's earlier argument.

"And we can't activate the headband without the interface device." Rodney leaned his back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest.

"So we have to go. How do you know that Lydia is gonna take all three of us?" Kiyah didn't like the idea of anyone staying behind, alone in the barren white chamber of horrors.

Rodney smirked. "She has to take all of us." He ticked off the reasons on his fingers. "You're the only one who knows where this was found. I'm the only one who can figure out how the equipment works and Carson is the only one who can make sense of these readings and the medical mumbo jumbo."

"Sure, now all you have to do is convince her of that." Carson's expression was grim. He wasn't looking forward to Lydia's return to the lab. He guessed from the expressions in Kiyah's and Rodney's eyes, they weren't looking forward to it either.


	22. The Price You Pay

Lydia Harper stormed across her make-shift office in a fury. How dare her captives not cooperate with her plans? She'd been monitoring them since she sealed them in the lab and while happy with the development that Carson could also activate the control crystal, she was furious that they'd actually need to leave the security of her lab to complete the research. It wasn't enough to know what the headband did; Lydia needed to be able to use it. She suspected that McKay was withholding information. If the headband could be used to treat mental illness and emotional trauma, she figured it could also be used to manipulate memories and possibly control another person.

Memory manipulation. Mind control. Lydia smiled at the thought of having that kind of power at her fingertips. She frowned at the closed circuit TV monitor. Her prisoners were sitting around the table, talking quietly. She boosted the audio feed but still couldn't make out everything they were saying. She leaned against the counter, her arms folded across her chest. Oh yes, mind control would be an amazing power; one she was certain she'd be able to wield once she acquired the final piece of technology. That power would be hers and hers alone. McKay would do exactly as he was told; or he'd be the first one she tested the device on.

Lydia clenched her fists and checked her watch. She'd given McKay four hours to make additional headway on the project. She watched the prisoners on the monitor; they looked like they were still working on the project but she wasn't certain. She hated the uncertainty. Lydia liked her world ordered, controlled. She pulled the strings; she made the puppets dance. These puppets were dancing out of tune and she didn't like it one bit.

It was time to tip the balance in her favor. So what if her next visit to the lab was a bit early? What better way to keep her prisoners guessing than to skew their sense of time? Besides, her curiosity was getting the better of her. She burned with a physical ache to know what McKay had discovered. If that artifact could do everything she imagined it could; she had to know. Now. She smiled at the thought of using the headband to extract every bit of information she could from her captives. Especially Beckett. She'd never imagined that he'd be so stubborn. She'd never encountered anyone as capable as him of resisting her chemical interrogation techniques.

That headband would solve her problems with the headstrong doctor. She would own every damned secret locked in his mind. Genetic manipulation. Exotic viruses. Lethal vaccinations. Cloning techniques. Hell, the man himself was a clone. Lydia twisted her pen through her fingers. She knew the Association was working on a cloning project; she also knew they were having stability issues. The subjects rarely lived more than a few weeks. Beckett had lived over two years and seemed perfectly healthy, if a little worse for wear since his capture. Lydia knew he had the solution to creating a healthy, stable clone.

Lydia pictured herself building her own little empire within the Association. She'd own the cloning project once she'd extracted the information from Beckett. No more scrambling for jobs. No more depending on the bureaucrats and power brokers who ordered her around. No more selling herself to sweaty, ambitious men who used her and then discarded her like old newspapers. No, Lydia Harper saw brighter days ahead as she stepped out of her office and headed for her lab.

She ignored the tiny little voice whispering in the corner of her mind; the one asking "what if you don't have this ATA gene?" She knew she had it; she had to have it. She was chosen; she was special. There was no way that nature would have failed to incorporate this impossibly miniscule, utterly vital bit of code into the genetic puzzle that was Lydia Harper. She squared her shoulders, ordered the whisper to shut up and faced the lab with determination.

* * *

Kiyah shifted on the hard metal chair. She frowned and shifted again. The cheap metal chair was not designed with comfort of the human posterior in mind. She considered that Lydia had supplied these chairs specifically for their painful ass-numbing effects. She was looking at the Anasazi symbols sketched on the notepad Dr. McKay had prepared. She recognized several of them; the life spiral and rain deity in particular, but many of the others were a mystery. She wondered at the ancient writings; what did these people have to say that they would carve it into rock walls and stone tablets? She traced her finger over a spiral, the swirling circles grounding her against her pain and fatigue.

Lydia's chemical party favors had packed quite a punch and Kiyah nursed the blossoming hangover with as much stillness and silence as she could muster. She sneaked little glances at Carson when he wasn't looking. His posture was guarded and his movements slow. She wondered if he was in as much pain as she was.

Rodney paced and muttered and clattered on the computer. Kiyah had never seen anyone do that and while interesting to watch initially, she soon found the movement and noise too much of a burden for her aching head. Her headache flared, pain clawed its way through her brain, pressed against her eyes, her ears, her teeth. She sighed and pushed away from the table. She'd found food, water and coffee in the lab when she'd first searched it. Maybe she'd overlooked Tylenol or aspirin, tequila or opiates, anything to dull the sharp edges of the headache.

Rodney tapped keys on the laptop, pausing occasionally to scan the room. He had a valid argument for going back to the canyon where Kiyah and Daniel had found the artifact. He was worried about selling it to Lydia; he'd never been that good with people but he hoped her greed and ambition outweighed her caution. He was sure he'd be able to engineer an escape if they could get out of the building. He glanced at his companions. Kiyah looked miserable; she prowled slowly around the lab and her gentle method of opening cabinets and drawers spoke volumes about the intensity of the headache she was sporting.

Carson sat slumped at the table, his chin propped in his hand, his eyes half-closed and glazed. His shoulders twitched and jerked as tremors ran through his muscles. He hadn't said anything but Rodney was worried about the toll Lydia's drugs were taking on him. He looked almost as bad as he had before he'd been put in stasis. Rodney shuddered at the memory; activating that pod had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done. Carson's eyes still haunted his dreams.

"Ha!" Kiyah barked a short triumphant laugh. She clutched a bottle of Tylenol in her hands like it was the Holy Grail. Rodney figured, to her, it probably was. She sat at the table and swallowed a double dose of the medication. Carson frowned but gratefully accepted his own capsules.

"I understand you've made some progress." Lydia slammed into the room with hurricane force. "And I understand that you've run into a roadblock." Her eyebrow arched at the three startled prisoners, each with mirror deer-frozen-in-headlights expressions on their faces.

"I...I...I translated as much of the tablet as I could. We can't do anything with that..." Rodney waved at the headband, "without the interface device. According to the translation, there is a third device that works with the crystal and the headband. We don't have that device so..." His voice trailed off at the controlled fury radiating off Lydia.

"So you expect me to believe that you need this device to make the other pieces work? Come now Dr. McKay, do you really think I am that naive?" Lydia folded her arms across her chest and gazed down her narrow nose at him.

Rodney licked dry lips. His eyes darted to the table and his companions before he met her gaze. "Believe what you want. I'm telling you the truth. There is a third device and if you want to know what that thing does; we need to go back to the canyon and find it. I don't mean just me; I mean all of us."

"Absolutely not. Menomonee can go get it and bring it back. You..."

"Not good enough. She doesn't know what to look for and even if she did; how do you know the device is something that you can just pick up and carry out of there? We all need to go. If there is a facility and it hasn't been destroyed and it does have power, then I can find it. I need Kiyah to lead me to the right canyon and I need Carson to interpret the medical data."

"No. They stay. I have the map. You can find the facility from that." Lydia met Rodney's stare.

"You're not listening. I need Kiyah..." Rodney glared at the coffee shop owner.

"Excuse me." Kiyah held up the topo map. The neat grease pencil Xs were wiped clean. "Go ahead. Take the map. Have fun on your little treasure hunt." She dropped the map on the table.

"You little bitch! What have you done? You'll fix that right now..."

"No. I don't think so." Kiyah raised her chin and met Lydia's fury with a calm level gaze. "I'm not telling you where to find that canyon...and if you hurt either of them..." Kiyah nodded at her companions, "You'll never find it."

"You..."

"I won't tell you how to find the canyon, but I will take you there." Kiyah folded her arms and held Lydia's glare. "Your choice. Take it or leave it. But you leave them alone or I'll lose you so deep in the backcountry; it'll be 10,000 years before anyone finds your body."

"Very well. It seems, Dr. McKay, that Ms. Menomonee has convinced me of the validity of your request. But hear me on this, if any of you try to escape; try to do anything but what you are told..." Lydia locked her ice grey eyes on Carson. "You all will die a very slow painful death in the middle of nowhere. I promise you that."

Lydia glared at Rodney. "Pack up what you need. We're leaving in an hour."

She stalked across the room to Kiyah and backhanded the barista across the face. Kiyah staggered into Lydia and nearly took them both to the floor. Lydia kicked and clawed her way free of Kiyah's loose-limbed grip, planting a solid blow to the other woman's ribs as she stormed from the room.

"I might need all of you to get me there. But I won't need you to get back here. Think about it."

Lydia slammed the door on her prisoners and marched back to her office. "Fucking Kiyah! How dare she interfere...again." Lydia paced and fumed and ranted and even her guards slunk away to hide in the shadows.

* * *

Carson crouched next to Kiyah. She was wheezing like an asthmatic seal as she caught her breath and cursed Lydia. He grinned in spite of the seriousness of the situation. Kiyah had quite the grasp on the versatility of certain words.

"Fuck you Lydia, you fucking bitch. I'm gonna push you off the first fucking cliff I find..." she glared at Carson and Rodney. "And if you try to stop me, I'll push you off too."

"I rather think we'd give you a hand, lass." Carson chuckled. "Here, let's have a look then."

He conducted a quick damage assessment on Kiyah's ribcage. "Nothing seems to be broken but you're going to have one doozy of a bruise there."

"I know. But it was worth it."

"Worth it! I thought you were going to get us all killed. What were you thinking? Oh wait, you weren't thinking. Just jump in and do something stupid and impulsive and..."

"And you're welcome, Dr. McKay." Kiyah cut him off before the rant could build steam. "Do you really think Lydia was going to bring you back if you went alone? She wants information and she wants that thing to work, whatever it does. Once she has what she wants; she has no more use for us."

Kiyah sat up and leaned against the cabinets. She met Rodney's gaze. "You know that. You said it yourself; she needs all three of us to get what she wants. And we stand a better chance of getting out of this mess if we are out of here. I know the backcountry. I know how to survive in the desert. If we're gonna get away, that's the best place to try. Especially with a little help from a friend."

Rodney stared at Kiyah as she opened her hand. His eyes widened and he sucked in a breath. He met Kiyah's eyes and nodded approval. Lydia's slim silver cell phone gleamed softly in Kiyah's palm.

* * *

Daniel parked at the edge of the charter flights airfield of the Colorado Springs airport. He'd used the private charter for hire service before when he and Kiyah were actively exploring the canyons, right before they'd found the silver box. Booking a flight on short notice was no problem for him. It was getting back into the canyon that had him worried.

Millennia of wind and water had carved twisted narrow grooves through the porous sandstone. The trail to the Ancient's canyon as he'd come to think of it followed the winding track of a long-dried river choked with rocks and boulders and soft sand dunes. Daniel remembered his last trip through the canyon. The hike had been a long grueling test of endurance. He remembered Kiyah scrambling over boulders; lizard-nimble, the barista had set a brisk pace and helped him when the going got tough.

He glanced at Keller leaning back in the passenger seat of his car. Her eyes were closed and she looked relaxed but lines of pain were etched across her fine-boned face. He wondered how she'd fare on the fifteen mile hike. She looked fragile and vulnerable and he wished again that he'd left her at Kiyah's apartment. He also knew she wouldn't stay.

Daniel sighed and paged through the contacts list on his cell phone. He found the number he wanted and placed a short call.

"Who were you talking to?" Jennifer's voice had a sleepy quiet quality to it.

"Leon Lightning Horse. He's Ben's nephew. I got us a ride from the airstrip to the trailhead. Leon said he might be able to get us horses. It's still a tough trail but horses will make it go a little faster."

Jennifer shrugged. "I can make it you know. This..." she pointed at her swollen eye, "isn't nearly as bad as it looks. I just want to find Rodney and Carson."

"I know. I want to find them too; all of them. But horses will be faster and easier since we won't need to carry all our gear in backpacks."

"Are you sure we're doing the right thing? I know Rodney was pretty certain that headband had something to do with the Ancients and ascension but do we really know that Lydia would go back to the canyon?" Jennifer pushed her hair back from her eyes as she studied Daniel.

"No we don't know for sure, but the odds are in our favor. And you're right; we can't sit around waiting any longer." Daniel switched off the cell phone and tucked it in his jacket before locking the car. He swung a backpack loaded with water, food, a map, flashlights and a GPS over his shoulder.

Jennifer shrugged into a thick sweater she'd borrowed from Kiyah's closet. The evening desert air was chilly and she shivered as she imagined her friends in the desert. At least she had warm clothing. She doubted Carson, Rodney and Kiyah did. She picked up her own pack and checked her supplies. Food and water, a small medical kit with an extra dose of Carson's serum were packed securely in her bag. She hoped she wouldn't need the serum, but she wasn't taking any chances. If Carson had been stressed physically, she feared he'd need it. She checked the pack once more then zipped it shut, slung it over her shoulder and turned to the small twin-engine Cessna sitting on the tarmac. "Let's go find them and bring them home."

* * *

"Not that I'm all for gettin' out of here, but isn't she goin' ta miss that thing?" Carson tilted his chin at the phone in Kiyah's hand.

Kiyah grinned. "I hope so. If she's looking for the phone, it'll give us a little more time to get organized. We need to make sure we have plenty of water and food. Lydia's going to make sure she has enough for herself, but she's not gonna care too much about us."

"And so you thought picking her pocket and stealing her phone would help us?" Rodney glared at Kiyah. "She's gonna beat the crap out of us when she finds out what you've done..."

"Then I'll just have to make sure she doesn't find out." Kiyah cut him off.

"Oh of course. Why didn't I think of that? Maybe because it's a bad plan."

Kiyah clenched the phone tightly in her fist and closed her eyes. She reminded Carson of Colonel Sheppard when he was trying desperately to control the urge to throttle the scientist. She sighed and looked at McKay.

"Dr. McKay, it's a calculated risk. Lydia isn't gonna bring me back from the desert."

"You don't know that. She's...maybe she's bluffing..."

"She isn't bringing me back." Kiyah's voice and eyes held a calm resignation. "You know that..."

"But she..."

"You know it." Kiyah rested a gentle hand on his wrist. "It's a chance I had to take. If she catches us; I'll take the fall. She still wants something from you."

Kiyah locked gazes with Rodney and Carson. "Both of you. She's likely to threaten you; knock you around a little but she's not gonna kill you until she gets what she wants. I'm still alive because she needs me to take her into that canyon. I'm dead the minute we find that outpost."

"But we don't even know there is an outpost." Rodney sounded as if he were trying to convince himself of the outpost's existence.

"You'd better hope there is. Otherwise we don't stand much of a chance ourselves." Carson muttered.

Kiyah nodded assent. "That's why we could use a little help."

She flipped the phone open and prayed Lydia hadn't password locked it. She glared at the phone as a little antenna icon spun merrily and flashed 'searching' on the screen.

"Dammit! Figures." Kiyah slumped against the cabinets, disappointment etched her features. "One fucking break, is that too much to ask?"

"What?" Rodney and Carson echoed each other. Kiyah didn't answer. She held up the phone so they could see the 'No Signal' message on the screen.

"Well so much for that brilliant idea." Bitterness laced Kiyah's voice and she closed her eyes and tilted her head back against the cabinets.

"Phone!" McKay snapped his fingers.

"What? There's no signal; it doesn't work down here."

He rolled his eyes and scowled. "I know. Hand it over. I might be able to boost the signal."

"You can do that?"

"Maybe. I don't know and I won't until I look at the phone." He snapped his fingers again and held out his hand.

Kiyah dropped the phone in his hand and pushing off the floor, followed him to the workbench. "So can you make it work?"

Rodney gave her a withering glare. Carson caught Kiyah's arm and pulled her away from the workbench. "Right then, let's give him some room to work. We still need to pack before Lydia comes back."

Kiyah nodded. They gathered supplies while Rodney tinkered with the phone and soon had a pile of sandwiches, Power Bars and water stacked on the table. Kiyah added the Tylenol. Carson claimed a small medical kit, little more than Band-Aids and antibiotic cream, but he added it to the table anyway. Kiyah suspected it was more of a balm for the doctor than actually useful for treating injuries.

She turned to the workbench and gathered up the artifacts and research notes. Lydia had given them the life signs detector and Kiyah stacked it with her laptop and the notes.

"Ok, I think I've got it. We have a signal, but it's not very strong and its not going to last very long. You get one shot at it, for a few seconds maybe before it cuts out."

"Then I'll just have to call back."

"No." Rodney shook his head. "You get one chance. Once we lose the signal, we lose the phone. This call is gonna fry the battery."

"Oh." Kiyah chewed her lip as she considered her options.

"Who are ya goin' to call then?" Carson was in favor of calling the National Guard, the Asgard, hell, the high school Color Guard if they had the means to rescue them from Lydia.

"Daniel. But if what you are saying is true, then it's not likely the phone will last long enough to even leave a voice message."

"I don't know. Maybe."

"What about a text message?"

"That could work, if it was short enough."

Kiyah nodded. "Orsorum."

"Orsorum? What is that?"

Kiyah smiled. "It's Ancient. It means beginning." She dialed Daniel's number, keyed the single word and signed it with her initials. She took a deep breath. "Here goes nothing."

Kiyah punched SEND and sent the single word message. "Please let this work."


End file.
